Job Opportunity for District Project Associate at CSF in Bihar

Job Title – District Project Associate

Project – Bihar CSF team (State FLN Projects team)

Location – 4 positions at District headquarters (West Champaran, Sheohar and Jahanabad), Bihar

About Central Square Foundation:

Founded in 2012, Central Square Foundation (CSF) is a non-profit philanthropic foundation working on the vision of ensuring quality school education for all children in India. We are driven by our mission to transform the school education system with a focus on improving children’s learning outcomes, especially in low-income communities.

We believe that ensuring Universal, Early, Conceptual and Procedural Mastery of Foundational Skills is essential for the overall success of the education system. To achieve this, we partner with individuals and social impact organisations to bring innovative solutions to education and work with the government to drive systemic impact. We collaborate with the ecosystem to leverage knowledge, build evidence and create proven tools around critical issues such as early learning, EdTech, classroom instruction methods and governance.

One of our approaches includes partnering with governments to design system-led programs, influencing policy-making, and developing knowledge products based on research and international best practices. CSF works with multiple state governments and has also partnered with the Government of Bihar on a long-term engagement for system reform to improve the quality of learning outcomes for early-grade children.

Learn more about CSF at the website

Position Summary:

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 prioritises Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) and puts an ambitious target of ensuring that all learners in Grade 3 achieve FLN by 2026-27. Bihar Government has launched Mission NIPUN Bihar in consonance with the national goal and targets.  CSF supports the Bihar Government in implementing the NIPUN Bihar mission. In addition to supporting the State Government, CSF has also initiated deeper interventions in 3 districts to demonstrate that the targets of FLN can be achieved within the stipulated time frame if government functionaries and civil societies work in coordination in implementation of different activities at the district level and beyond. The district Project Associate would be based out of one the three districts as part of a two member District FLN Project Team (DPMU)

Key Responsibilities:

• Project implementation: Working with District education leadership and officials to support them on key workstreams like Assessment, Teaching Learning Material, Governance & Institutional structures, IEC, Monitoring and other tasks for intervention of FLN related activities conceptualised at state as well as district level

Government and external stakeholder engagement:  

• Coordination and collaboration with government stakeholders and supporting them in the work on foundational learning
• Engaging and collaborating with existing and new partner NGOs and experts in the district in implementation of the FLN mission
• Support capacity building of district level education leadership and functionaries including workshops, information dissemination through learning resources
• Support data and evidence based review mechanism at district level 
• Develop knowledge products, create documentation and outputs on intervention implemented at district level including monthly and quarterly progress reports
• Diagnosis and gap identification – Support the state team in gap identification and analysis for more robust planning and conceptualisation of policies and interventions at state level
• Perform other tasks from time to time assigned by the State Team Leader, coordinate with other colleagues and undertake field visits as per requirement.

Required qualification, skills and abilities:

• Bachelor’s degree from a reputed university is required; a Master’s degree preferred in education, development studies and social sciences
• 2+ years of hands-on work experience  
• Strong action-bias 
• Critical thinking, problem solving and strong interpersonal skills 
• Excellent people and project delivery skills 
• Entrepreneurial spirit and ‘can-do’ attitude 

Desired qualifications:

• Experience in project implementation and education sector
• Ability to adapt to changing and fast paced work environment
• Ability to take ownership of multiple concurrent tasks
• Good command over Hindi language
• Proficiency in MS office, documentation and data analysis

Start Date: As soon as possible

Compensation: Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and will depend upon the candidate’s experience levels.

Apply through the KEKA link and share your CV and a 500 word motivation statement stating your intent and suitability for the role at kamal@centralsquarefoundation.org