Education Technology and Innovation Officer at the International Rescue Committee (IRC)

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Education Technology and Innovation Officer

Requisition ID: req41303
Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Employment Type: Full-Time
Employment Category: Regular
Sector: Education
Open to Expatriates: No
Ability to Travel: 20% of time if applicable

Contextual Background

• One of the impacts of COVID-19 is that an unprecedented 1.6 billion students across the world have been out of school; however, 258 million children were already out of school before the pandemic. Half of these children live in crisis-affected countries.
• And while progress has been made towards achieving universal education over the past twenty years, these “last mile” children remain largely out of reach. In response to this crisis, the Nigeria country team in coordination with the Education Global Research & Innovation Priority (GRIP) at Airbel Impact Lab and the Education Technical Unit will implement an innovative program in a number of crisis-affected contexts that reaches last-mile children and parents and caregivers, providing them with quality education solutions.
• Unlike other emergency-constrained contexts, Nigeria has a large commercial EdTech market with solutions that address many of the infrastructure characteristics that we would normally consider unique to the humanitarian context.
• This results in a large portion of existing commercial EdTech solutions with potential to serve humanitarian needs. This is the result of Nigeria’s large market economy and because most of the country (including urban areas) face similar baseline constraints as humanitarian contexts such as intermittent power, connectivity, and insecurity.
• Due to this intersection, many EdTech companies already build with these conditions in mind as part of their commercial strategy. Building for these conditions is not a humanitarian issue, so new solutions usually don’t need to be built up from the idea stage.
• In Nigeria we will work with market ready companies with “dual-use” commercial applications to generate solutions for the humanitarian education context.

Job Overview / Summary

• The IRC is seeking to hire a full time Education Technology and Innovation officer (Edtech) in Nigeria to support projects across our portfolio of the education Global Research & Innovation Priority (GRIP). Our multi-disciplinary teams build, facilitate, and contribute on projects that span research and ideation through to prototyping, piloting, evaluation and scaling. Our solutions are co-created in partnership with colleagues and partners from the regions where we work.
• You must be comfortable in a fast paced, collaborative and flexible working environment to help to manage the diverse, multi-disciplinary work. Experience of working in cross-functional teams is essential.
• The successful candidate will report to the Ed-Tech Specialist in Nigeria and will be responsible for providing technical leadership for all the education activities, including leading and coordinating the non-formal education program and systems support activities at the national and state level.

Major Responsibilities

• The Ed-Tech and Innovation Officer (EdTech) will be an integral part of the Nigeria Country team and will work collaboratively with the Education team at various stages of innovation, research, and project implementation.

EdTech solution scaling and thought leadership:

• Oversee EdTech pilots in coordination with the technology, education, and humanitarian partners, while building roadmaps to scale
• Support further understanding of localized student and teacher needs for education, preferably in humanitarian contexts.
• Oversee training, coaching and on-going support of teachers, tutors and learning facilitators to improve instructional practices in literacy, numeracy and social and emotional skills.
• Ensure technical coordination of state-level activities related to teacher education and curriculum development, and obtain support from directorates and local government authorities as needed
• Build and maintain a network of innovation process and education solution partners who can support the development of new educational products and services. This includes individuals, collectives, implementers, consultancies, and startups.

Program & Project Management:

• Manage delivery across several projects with multi-disciplinary teams that include education, technology, design, innovation, implementation, and research expertise.
• Support the projects procurements activities in collaboration with the Supply Chain team.
• Clear monitoring and reporting (monthly, quarterly, and annually) against program level deliverables and KP

Key Working Relationships:

• Position Reports to: Ed-Tech Specialist
• Indirect/Technical Reporting: Education Manager; Education coordinator
• Position directly Supervises: N/A
• Key Internal Contacts: M&E, HR, Supply chain and Finance

Qualifications
Education / Work Experience:

• Preferably Master’s Degree in Education Technology, Bachelor’s Degree in Education, or related field.
• 4 - 5 years of experience delivering projects and programs ideally in NGO or social enterprise settings.
• Experience of working with cross functional digital teams.
• Experience of delivering innovation projects (ideally education technology and innovation ones) end-to-end, on time, on budget and to a high quality.
• Experience of financial management at project and program level.
• Good understanding of, and experience with, project planning software and a range of cloud-based technologies (esp Asana, Mavenlink, Hubspot & Excel)
• Enjoys collaborative working, flexible structures and working with a geographically dispersed team.
• Ability to multi-task and move quickly between projects through effective prioritization.
• Organized and with excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to apply a diversity and inclusion lens and approach to work.
• Cares about the mission and goals of the IRC.

Desirable:

• Preferred experience working in education in humanitarian contexts.
• Experience of working on projects with a diverse range of non-profit, commercial, and entrepreneurial stakeholders.

Demonstrated Technical Skills:

• Demonstrated Managerial/Leadership Competencies: N/A

Languages:

• English
• Hausa or Kanuri is desirable

Computer / Other Tech Requirements:

• Full professional competency in Microsoft Office Suite, especially Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. 
• Add position-specific (e.g., accounting software, statistical software, etc.).

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.