Examinations Operations Managers 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 below:

Job Title: Examinations Operations Manager

Location: Port Harcourt
Port Harcourt
Directorate or Region: SSA
Department: English & Exams
Pay Band: Country Appointed PB6
Reports to: Deputy Country Exams Manager/Assistant Country Exams Manager

Purpose of Job

• This post is responsible for the operational management of examination delivery in Port Harcourt.
• To lead a team of up to 6 staff to deliver examinations security and giving a branded British Council customer experience to our clients.

Context and Environment: (e.g. dept description, region description, organogram)

• Nigeria, a tier 1 country, has the largest project, programme and exams operations in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  We operate from 4 main office locations. Individually, the Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt Exams offices alone are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd largest exams businesses by income in SSA respectively. Nigeria examinations work encompasses School exams, IELTS, and a wide range of academic and professional qualifications.  
• The Exams business in Nigeria has grown significantly in recent years. We doubled our income and volumes between 2011 and 2013. In 2014/15 we delivered 90,000 examinations, this financial year the target is 100,000 exams on a turnover of £8.5m.
• Customer service, operational quality and compliance assurance are critical to the business.  Nigeria’s operating context means that risk management and contingency planning will be ongoing areas of focus. Developing flexible and appropriate delivery models will be critical in responding to the challenges of working across the country.  There are a number of initiatives underway to address these needs.  The Global New Operating Model for Exams (GNOME) and Global Financial Change projects are critical to our business plans.

Accountabilities and Responsibilities
(including people management and finance)

• Reliability: to ensure examinations are delivered securely according to board requirements
• Quality: to deliver a high standard of customer service to our schools and their candidates. As measured by our own QCA, examination board, IELTS partner and Customer Management Framework standards.
• Business growth: to assist with providing capacity for growth in volumes managed by the Port Harcourt office.
• Financial control, monitoring and reporting: to manage the Port Harcourt exams businesses to target by monitoring and reporting income and costs on a monthly basis
• Impact: to achieve impact for the UK and the BC through providing access to quality UK qualifications
• Leadership: to manage and motivate the Port Harcourt exams team to achieve challenging objectives.

Main Duties
Examination Delivery:

• Responsibility for the full cycle of examination delivery in Port Harcourt. To ensure that these examinations are delivered to examination board, partners’ and EQS standards. Occasionally to assist in delivery at peak times.
• Compliance: To manage inspection visits from examination boards as well as for carrying out regular inspections of examination venues themselves, monitoring security processes against standards set by the examination board and QCA. To conduct spot checks of venues and venue staff where necessary.
• To respond to and implement appropriately recommendations from exam boards, partners and QCA reviewers.
• To identify areas for increased efficiency and security in examination delivery and prepare plans to implement these. Oversee implementation of these plans across Nigeria.

Centre Management:

• To ensure value for money in purchases and adherence to procurement regulations.
• To be the process owner for the Customer Management Framework implementation for Port Harcourt.
• To seek and use customer feedback to improve service delivery.
• To carry out management spot checks as required.
• To lead staff in an effective and pro-active manner and to ensure accountability and delivery of services. To manage the development and professional training of staff.

Cross-Business Unit Working:

• To work with Country Exams Manager and other senior exam managers/GFS project managers in the planning and delivery of schools-specific and skills events.

Finance:

• To oversee the preparation of Port Harcourt income reconciliations to agreed timescales.
• To ensure income is recorded correctly on the FABS system and in a timely manner.
• To ensure that FABS processes are followed by the team.

Budget Management:

• To assist Country Exams Manager and members of Exams management team in planning activity and then to assist on monitoring and managing income and expenditure to agreed targets. To report on these targets monthly.
• To identify areas for improving value for money through better administrative processes and vendor market testing.

General Management:

• To contribute to Nigeria Exams team objectives by attending and contributing to staff meetings.
• To substitute for management team members.
• To lead on the recruitment, training and monitoring team for venue staff for Port Harcourt.
• To ensure training of venue staff is appropriate and takes into account feedback from partners and quality checks.
• To carry out periodic performance monitoring of venue staff and retain documentation for these.
• Assist with general staff recruitment and training.

Line Management:

• To Line manage up to 6 members of exams staff (Exams officers and customer service staff) in Port Harcourt.

Continuing professional development:

• To ensure that elective and mandatory training is undertaken.
• To identify training needs for team, and assist in delivering this training.

Key Relationships
Internal:

• Country Exams Manager, Deputy Country Exams Manager, Assistant Country Exams Manager, Regional Exams Manager, Country Director, Schools Manager, IELTS Administrators Lagos and Abuja, GFS Schools and ELT project managers, Exams Finance Officer, Finance Manager Lagos.

External:

• IELTS partners, IELTS Examiner Trainer, IELTS Examiners, CIE (UK and SSA), CIE inspectors from the UK, other examination boards, school principals and exam coordinators, school associations. BCSN members.

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

• Local travel to visit/inspect universities and schools occasionally in remote areas.
• Occasional travel to Lagos/Abuja/Kano and global destinations or training.
• Overnight stays and weekend working may be required.
• Examinations take place on Saturdays, and early starts are sometimes required.
• Examination dedlies are absolute, so out of hors late working may be required to meet deadlines.

Person Specification
Behaviours

Essential:

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

Skills and Knowledge
Developing Business Level 2:

• Researches markets and conducts cost/benefit analyses to identify new opportunities or recommend improvements to current initiatives (Analytical Skills)

Using Technology - Level 2:

• Works as an advanced practitioner in the use of office software and/or British Council standard and social media platforms and trains or coaches others in their use.

Financial Management - Level 1:

• Uses corporate financial systems and processes appropriately as part of the job and on behalf of a team.

Managing Accounts & Partnerships - Level 1:

• Able to research business issues and contacts in stakeholder and potential partner organisations to support account management and business development.
• English Language proficiency to IELTS band 8.0 in all areas (or equivalent).
• Analysing data and formulating marketing plans from these data.
• Presentation skills.
• Customer Service Focus.
• Strong Organisation Skills
• Team Work.
• Ability to deal with Conflict.
• Change Management.
• Stakeholder Management.
• Strong Attention to detail.
• Training and managing a team to deliver to quality standards.

Desirable:

• Knowledge of the education and qualification systems in the UK and Nigeria

Experience

• Managing a Team Level 3
• (Previous line management experience including staff performance management)
• Provides full line management to a team where all members are working in a similar area of expertise or business. Scope includes planning, setting objectives, role modelling an inclusive culture, recruitment, and development and performance management.
• Monitoring service to quality standards and implementing improvements.
• Dealing with customers and enquiries in a service environment.
• Setting objectives and delivering results towards targets.

Desirable:

• Three year's work experience as an operations manager.

Qualifications

• Education to 1st degree level or equivalent.

Desirable:

• A 1st degree in an education-related field or NCE.

Application Closing Date
22nd May, 2016.

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 Core Skills (pdf)

Click here to download BC Behaviour (pdf)