Examinations Officers (CIE Lead) at British Council Nigeria

The British Council is the world's leading cultural relations organization and creates opportunities for people in the UK and worldwide to understand each other, to work together and learn from one another. We see this as crucial to building secure, more prosperous and sustainable futures for us all. We build trust and understanding between different countries and cultures and develop strong international links that are of benefit to people in Britain and the rest of the world.

We are recruiting to fill the below position of:

Job Title: Examinations Officer (CIE Lead)

Region: SSA
Location: Abuja
Department: Exams/Nigeria
Pay Band: Country Appointed PB4
Reports to: Assistant Country Exams Manager

Purpose of Job

• To support Examination Services in Nigeria in delivering exams and to maintain them at the highest professional standards as set out in the British Council's EQS (Examination Quality and Compliance Assessment), examinations boards and partners.
• Context and environment: (e.g. dept description, region description, organogram)
• Nigeria Exams is the largest British Council exams business in the Sub Saharan Africa region. It administers exams in four subject areas: Schools, Professional/Vocational, Educational on behalf of UK institutions and IELTS. In 2012-13 we delivered roughly 70,000 exams to 25,000 candidates.
• The team comprises 31 people; 18 are based in Lagos with 8 in Abuja and 5 in Port Harcourt.
• The SSA region delivers exams in over 20 countries from its offices in 16 of these countries. In 2010, we delivered a quarter of a million exams to over 100k candidates. Growth in the region is robust, but our challenges are many. Nevertheless, Exams teams are making solid gains in our 4 strategic priority areas, namely: improving business performance, improving quality, improving financial compliance and increasing impact.
• The post holder will be part of a team of 8 in Abuja who administer the growing exams business ensuring quality and compliance as well as control of income and expenditure to deliver on target. This role will support the delivery of CIE in Abuja in addition to assisting other exams in Abuja.

Accountabilities and Responsibilities (including people management and finance)

• As Exams Officer (CIE Lead), the post holder will be line managed by the Assistant Country Exams Manager
• This role will support delivery of the different examinations administered from the Abuja office.
• All administrative procedures are in full compliance with Examination boards, Partners and EQCA standards.
• Reliability: to ensure examinations are delivered securely according to board requirements
• Quality and Compliance: to deliver a high standard of customer service to our schools and their candidates.
• As measured by our own Exams Quality and Compliance Assessment, Customer Service Standards, and inspection visits from Cambridge International Exams and other examination boards as required.
• Finance: all British Council standards for managing finances are met with relation to income reconciliations, cash handling, managing POs, managing contracts and procurement.
• Information Knowledge Management: Manage information created and received in compliance with the Council’s information management standards, policies, the UK Data Protection Principles and local legislation.

Main Duties
Administration of examinations in Abuja:

• Exam registration procedures including receiving and collating registration forms for the Abuja area, entering and retrieving data on CIE Direct, IWAS and other exam board registration portals, payments and exams correspondence including dispatch of results.
• Overseeing and taking delivery of examinations materials and checking them prior to exams commencing, packing and returning scripts daily, maintaining logs appropriately.
• Preparing candidate registration forms.
• Answering enquiries about exams.

Exam Delivery:

• Delivering Examinations on test days which includes:
• Supervision of venue staff
• Ensuring adherence to examination day procedures

Post-Examination Administration:

• Secure and accurate dispatch of test answers and materials to the examination board. Maintaining accurate logs of examination paper movements.
• Using up-to-date knowledge of PSN and IWAS/ESOLCOMMS to generate test report forms and jagged profiles when delegated by the RSM
• Effective delegation of duties when absent on leave or through illness etc.
• Shredding examination materials while recording this in accordance with PSN standards and keeping accurate records of the movement of live materials when delegated by the RSM
• To keep a database of suspected malpractice cases

Venue Staff:

• Venue staff creation and payment.
• To be part of the recruitment, training and monitoring team for venue staff.
• To schedule venue staff for examination sessions.

Exams Team Support:

• To assist in planning teacher training events for CIE attached and potential attached schools
• To manage recruitment, training, monitoring of support staff for the Abuja exams team.
• To support the IELTS team in maintaining logs of preparation materials for IELTS
• To support the IELTS team in managing IELTS preparation courses in Nigeria
• To assist the Abuja Exams team in delivery of schools-specific events.

Marketing & Customer Service:

• To follow a programme of visits to schools to build relationships with existing and potential clients to expand the business.
• To assist the RSM in appropriate marketing of CIE and other examinations in Abuja and Northern Nigeria
• To assist the Regional Sales Manager in collecting qualitative and quantitative marketing data in order to contribute to the marketing action plan and support business development.
• Seeking and using customer feedback to improve service delivery.

Finance:

• To prepare and submit income reconciliations to agreed timescales.
• To record income correctly on the FABS system and in a timely manner.
• To comply with Contract and Procurement standards.

Key relationships:

• Internal: Country Exams Manager, Deputy Country Exams Manager, Assistant Country Exams Manager, Head of Marketing, IELTS Administrator, Assistant IELTS Administrator, Training Manager, Customer Service Manager, Regional Sales Managers, Centre Manager Port Harcourt, Exams Officers in Lagos and Port Harcourt, Customer Service Staff Nigeria, Finance Manager Nigeria. Schools and Project Managers etcExternal: CIE, Edexcel, AQA  UK and SSA representatives, School Principals, Schools examinations co-ordinators, AISEN, APEN and other professional teaching associations, IELTS RMT, IELTS Examiners, venue staff, enquirers, candidates, Regional Exams Manager.

Other important features or requirements of the job: (e.g. travel, unsocial/evening hours, restrictions on employment etc)

• Flexible working hours during peak periods (May/June & November/December) for CIE, ACCA, University of London etc is required.  Examination delivery deadlines are absolute; therefore, out of hours working may be required in order to meet these deadlines.
• IELTS tests are usually held on Saturdays and Sundays and some early evenings. Professional and vocational examinations are also occasionally held on Saturdays. Rostered working on Saturdays, Sundays and some evenings is required. Travel to administer/monitor these tests in centres outside of Abuja is required.
• Test deadlines are absolute; therefore, out of office hours working may be required to meet these deadlines. Travel to administer/monitor examinations in centres outside of Abuja may be required. Overnight stays and weekend working may be required.

Person Specification
Behaviours:

• Working together (essential): Establishing a genuinely common goal with others.
• Making it happen (essential):
• Being Accountable (more demanding)
• Creating Shared Purpose (essential)
• Shaping the future (essential):
• Look for ways in which we can do things better.
• Connecting with others (essential): Making regular opportunities to understand others better.

Skills and Knowledge
Essential:

• Marketing and Customer Service - Level 1
• Computer Skills - Level 1
• English Language proficiency to IELTS band 7.5 in all areas (or equivalent).
• Desirable:
• Knowledge of the education and qualification systems in the UK and Nigeria

Experience
Essential:

• Dealing with customers and enquiries in a service environment.
• Providing and monitoring service within quality standards.
• Working quickly and accurately to tight deadlines.
• Experience of handling and reporting on payments from customers.

Desirable:

• Experience of delivering examinations in a timely and secure manner.
• Managing and training casual staff.

Qualifications
Essential:

• Secondary School education up to ‘A’ Level standard

Desirable:

• A qualification in examinations management.

Guidance on Preparing a Role Profile
Job Description:

• Complete the job description section of the role profile
• Purpose of job - What is the overall aim of the job?  Why does it exist? (One or two sentences are usually enough for this).
• Context and Environment - what does the department do? Which region does the job sit in? Are there any particular challenges or attractions of the region or area? Is it part of a team, if so how big is the team and where does the job fit? Who does it report to? (An organogram is helpful here)
• Accountabilities, Responsibilities and Main Duties.
• Accountabilities - results for which the post holder is held accountable not necessarily tasks they perform themselves. More senior roles often have more accountabilities as they deliver results through others.
• Responsibilities - what actions or tasks is the job holder responsible for? e.g. management or administration of finances, managing people, delivering or contributing to organisational targets, delivering own or others work to agreed standards
• Main Duties - the main specific duties that job holder has to do in order to meet the responsibilities e.g. project planning, budget planning, event co-ordination, teacher recruitment. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all the tasks in a job, just the main ones. If there are one or two duties which form the major part of the job e.g. reconciliation of payments for a finance role it is helpful to indicate what percentage of the job these activities take up.

Key Relationships:

• What people or organisations (internal and / or external) does the job holder have to interact with or influence and to what level?  For example an Events Co-ordinator might have to maintain relationships with venue providers and participants externally and managers and PAs internally.
• Other important features or requirements of the job - are there significant or unusual demands which are essential to the job e.g. unsocial / evening hours, international travel etc? Please be as specific as possible on these and only include those which are essential.

Application Closing Date
1st October, 2015.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Click here to download job details MS Word

Click here to download BC Behaviour (pdf)

Click here to download BC Core Skills (pdf)