Education Specialist, Early Childhood at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Nigeria is supporting the Government of Nigeria to strengthen prevention of and response all forms of violence against children. In particular, assistance will be provided to strengthen the child protection system, including through modelling the system in four States, in order to demonstrate the impact of a well-functioning child protection system, to develop a common model for operationalizing the Child Rights Act at State level and to develop standardized tools, including regulations, working protocols and training manuals to govern the system.

If you are a passionate and committed professional and want to make a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

We are recruiting to fill the position of:

Job Title: Education Specialist, Early Childhood

VN No.: VN-NGR-14 May 2015-53
Location: Abuja
Level: NOC
Type of Appointment: Fixed Term-2 years

Purpose of the Post

• To address issues of early childhood development, stimulation and learning. The huge numbers of children out of school in Nigeria especially in the northern part of Nigeria and parts of the southern part have been attributed to late entries in school. Only about half of the children expected to enter Early Childhood Development (ECD) are actually enrolled in ECD centres. This has led to poor learning outcomes, with low level of reading, especially at the early years of schooling.
• Working with the Federal Ministry of Education and its relevant parastatals, the holder of this job will focus on Early Childhood Care Education concept development provision of enlarged technical support for strategic and policy direction support to strategies development generation and analysis of community level data to inform intervention and evidence-based policy to enrich advocacy for increased support to Early Childhood Care Education, in collaboration with Field Office teams and other stakeholders that support the delivery of Early childhood care education programmes.
• Specifically, the incumbent of the post will provide technical support for effective programming and facilitate the development of desired policy change in Early Childhood Care Education progmmmes
• Support programme planning , implementation, monitoring & evaluation of quality early childhood care Education programme
• Support the development of policy framework and advocacy at different programme implementation arena; and
• Ensure effective management and coordination of Partners for quality delivery of expected results

Qualifications and Competencies

• Advanced University Degree in one or more of the disciplines relevant to the following areas: Education; Primary Education, or a Social Science field relevant to International development
• Five years of progressively professional work experience at national and international level in Field programes relevant to Education programme. Experience working in UN or other international development organisation an asset. Experience in national level development assistance is an asset. Experience with addressing gender disparities and asset
• Background/familiarity with Emergency
• Fluency in English and local working language of the duty station.
• Advanced knowledge of one or more of the technical areas of UNICEF Education programme.
• Advanced Technical Knowledge of theories, principles and methods in one of the following areas: Education; Primary Education, Economic, Social Science, and/or related fields
• Gender and diversity awareness
• Leadership in identifying encouraging and mentoring capable women.
• Knowledge of the global commitment on aid effectiveness, including the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the Accra Agenda for Action as well as knowledge of the Global Programme Partnerships (GPPs).
• Knowledge of theories and practices in: Programme/project management in Education, Monitoring and Evaluation, Training and Capacity Development in Education, Alternative Basic Education, Curriculum Development and Knowledge Management.

Application Closing Date
25th August, 2015.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidate should submit their application, accompanied by updated CV's in English and a completed United Nations Personal History Form.

Application should be sent to: nrecruit@unicef.org Candidate are advised to put the Job Title on the Subject line of their email.

Click here to download United Nations Personal History Form