Head of Education at Save the Children Nigeria

Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children in need, with programs in over 120 countries. We save children’s lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfil their potential. Save the Children is working in Nigeria because one in five children in Nigeria dies before their fifth birthday. About 40% of children miss out on school and have to work to survive while nearly 2 million children have lost one or both parents to an AIDS-related disease.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Head of Education

Location: Abuja
Employment Type: Full-time

Role Purpose

• The Head of Education will use their in-depth contextual understanding, technical expertise, and relationship building skills to define and deliver our strategic ambition for education.
• The role will lead strategy development and the technical design and implementation of high-quality programmes that deliver change for children in both emergency and development programming.
• The role supports national advocacy and influencing, while driving strategic partnerships for new business development.
• It supports the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems to demonstrate impact, while sharing learning across our programmes, teams and partners.
• The role will work closely operations colleagues and with partners in Nigeria CO, building their capacity and building ownership and agency of local organisations.
• This role includes a focus on external representation on priority issues including: early childhood care and development: foundational learning and uninterrupted learning (education in emergencies) to ensure all children have access to education leading to learning and wellbeing outcomes.
• In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

Scope of Role

• Reports to: Director Programme Quality & Development
• Staff reporting to this post: Education Technical Expert, Education Coordinator, and provide coaching and mentoring support to operational and other technical colleagues and local partners.
• Budget Responsibilities: None

Role Dimensions

• The role is expected to foster relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders including Save the Children members, the Country Office Programme Development & Quality team, advocacy colleagues, Regional Advisors, technical counterparts in other organisation, donors, academia etc. The role is also expected to engage with internal technical working groups and communities of practice.
• Context: Humanitarian and development

Key Areas of Accountability
Technical Leadership:

• Provide technical leadership for education or the Country Office and set the strategic approach in relation to the wider country strategy.
• Build capacity of education staff and partners in key technical approaches related to education.
• Ensure safeguarding is embedded in all education programmes, and Core Operational Safeguarding Activities (COSA) are implemented and requisite standards met.

Ensuring Programme Quality (Design & Implementation):

• Support New Business Development colleagues through technical inputs on funding strategies, donor engagement, capture planning, partnering and forming consortia, and opportunity preparation.
• Lead high quality technical education programme design; work with cross-functional colleagues across the movement and with local partners to deliver technical programme designs that are evidence based and in line with our programme quality principles, international standards, and donor requirements.
• Work to ensure that a rights based approach is reflected in our programme design and implementation (in line with our child rights programming approach ), with a strong focus on child participation
• Promote an Education Systems Strengthening approach as the overarching framework, that supports working in collaboration and partnership with governments and regional bodies, local partners and working towards impact, scale and sustainability.
• Provide oversight and guidance to the programme implementation teams to ensure that thematic programme components are technically sound, implementation methods are consistent with national and global strategies, acknowledged good practice (e.g. Save the Children Common Approaches); and are likely to achieve scale, as well as equitable and sustainable results.
• Promote and monitor integrated programming in a way that increases overall impact of education programmes at the community level.
• Work with Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL) teams to carry out gender and power analysis, and conduct quality monitoring against international standards through participatory methodologies that promote gender equality and social justice (including child-friendly and gender sensitive/transformative methodologies);.
• Contribute towards the creation of an organisational learning culture that promotes the use of disaggregated data, evidence and analysis (including gender and power analysis) and understands its link to quality and accountable programming; Contribute to strengthening the use of equality-focused programme principles and good practice across themes and sectors.
• Undertake field visits to project sites; work with implementation teams to understand impacts, operational challenges, and continuously identify opportunities for learning and improvement .
• Contribute to organisational learning on education, ensuring that learning from our programmes is shared across the Country Office and our partners, as well as with colleagues in the wider regional and global education community in Save the Children including relevant technical working groups.
• Monitor trends in order to ensure early action; and lead technical design and implementation and technical coordination of humanitarian responses. Support Humanitarian colleagues (as needed) to develop emergency preparedness plans, and conduct sectoral assessments ( including gender analysis and disability situation analysis , using SC assessment processes and tools) and to design and deliver emergency response and recovery programmes.

Networking & External Engagement:

• In alignment with Country Office strategy and leadership, engage in strategic positioning with donors, partners and government in-country, and ensure that Save the Children is a partner of choice in education.
• Ensure that Save the Children is influencing and learning from others through national technical coordination and networking bodies such as clusters and working groups recognising Save the Children and UNICEF are global co-leads for the education cluster.
• Strengthen civil society engagement in national dialogues and policy processes through working closely with advocacy and child rights governance colleagues. Ensure that the diverse voices of children, girls and boys are equitably heard and represented in our education work.
• Represent the program to National and Local government representatives, donors, partner agencies, etc. as required.
• Ensure the quality, clarity and consistency of technical components of internal and external reports (e.g. programme reports, sit-reps, internal updates), working closely with awards, programme implementation and communications colleagues as needed.
• Leverage and liaise with technical colleagues from across Save the Children, including technical working groups and centres of excellence, ensuring that learning from the Country Office is shared with others and global lessons brought back.

People Management:

• Support implementation of the Save the Children performance management system, by supporting, coaching, supervising and reviewing performance of the Education staff.
• Create and maintain a cooperative and positive working environment where staff have clear roles and responsibilities, participate in decision-making and are supported in progressing towards their objectives.
• Working together with the Education Teams to identify learning and development needs of the Education Officers and develop specific plans to address the learning needs.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• Master's Degree in Education
• At least 7 years experience of leading the design and implementation of humanitarian and development programmes in education.
• Understanding of the education sector in Nigeria
• Familiar with education systems (humanitarian/cluster systems as needed) for ex. the INEE Minimum Standards, the key issues related to Sustainable Development Goal 4 – to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all .
• Track record in successful business development/fundraising such as Global Partnership for Education, Education Cannot Wait, EU, FCDO, USAID, World Bank
• Demonstrated program design, monitoring and evaluation skills, including designing pathways to sustainable impact at scale.
• Experience of strategy development and planning
• Experience of context, capacity and policy analysis, and influencing and advocacy at regional/international level in order to hold duty bearers to account to realise children’s rights.
• Skilled at networking, representation and partnership development in order promote learning, strengthen civil society and mobilise resources.
• Able to generate and use data and evidence to innovate, deliver, learn and share what works and what doesn’t work for children
• Experience of promoting quality and impact through at least one cross-cutting area: gender equality and inclusion, adaptive and safer programming; child rights; disability; migration and displacement.
• Experience of supporting humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery
• Significant experience in training, capacity building, and mentoring
• Fluent in English and high level of English writing skills.

Key Competencies:
Technical competencies:

• Ensures all children’s access to quality education
• Ensures all children’s wellbeing
• Supports all children’s learning and development

Generic Competencies

• Being the Voice of Children : Promotes evidence-based policy and public engagement that includes the voices of children and their communities
• Advancing Equality & Inclusion : Displays a commitment to ensuring everything we do considers the most deprived and marginalised children
• Building & Strengthening Partnerships : Promotes working with diverse partners as critical to delivery
• Child Rights: Promotes the rights of children in own work and in work with colleagues and peers.

Behaviours (Values in Practice):
Accountability:

• Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values.
• Holds their team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in accordance with the context, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.

Ambition:

• Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same.
• Widely shares Save the Children’s vision, and engages and motivates others future orientated, thinks strategically and on a national and global scale.

Collaboration:

• Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters.
• Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength.
• Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.

Creativity:

• Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• Willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity.
• The post holder must commit to work in an international agency that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion and fights racism, gender inequality and discrimination in all forms; and to model positive behaviours that demonstrate a commitment to equality and respect to all colleagues, partners and communities.

Application Closing Date
18th April, 2024.