Job Opportunity for Education Specialist – North East at Quest Alliance in Guwahati

At Quest Alliance we transform learning ecosystems through education technology, capacity building, and collaboration to build 21st-century skills for learners and facilitators

We are a not-for-profit trust that focuses on research-led innovation and advocacy in the field of teaching and learning. We engage with educators, civil society, government institutions and corporate organizations to demonstrate and enable scalable and replicable solutions in school education and vocational training

At Quest you will get the opportunity to apply your skills and contribute to addressing issues around quality education and skills training. The organization gives you the space to learn and grow in a fun and engaging environment.  We have an eclectic group of people working at Quest drawn from diverse disciplines including Education, Technology, Design, Youth Development and Business. 

About the Role

Quest Alliance has been working in the Govt schools for more than a decade now. It aims to transform schools into a 21st century learning space having teachers facilitating activities, communities coming together to take action for ensuring every student’s continued education and learners building key 21st century skills. In the northeast region, currently the programme is being implemented in the state of Assam and Nagaland. 

The Education Specialist will be part of the regional team and shall anchor the the education programme with responsibilities to ensure implementation of the programme, support development of content, lead and facilitate capacity building initiatives for team and govt school teachers and be the point of contact for supporters. The role will also lead efforts to develop content for delivery with students and ensure the implementation of curriculum plans in model schools for the year. The role has scope to review the state curriculum, find areas of integration of the curriculum developed by Quest. 

We are looking for an experienced person who has prior experience of having worked with the govt schooling system while having a perspective on the content thematics STEM, 21st century skills, computational thinking and career. The role of the Education Specialist is going to be critical in supporting the overall content development, review and the capacity building strategy for different stakeholders.

Role Description

Capacity building of Facilitators, teachers, NGO Partners and govt. stakeholders

• Design capacity building activities and facilitate them for the team, partners and govt school teachers
• Organize and facilitate training/workshops for the facilitators who are in charge of mentoring and demonstrating the programme for the teachers to be able to implement it.
• Lead the state content task force by ensuring development of any content required to be contextualized and facilitate the capacity of the team to implement the activities.
• Organize and facilitate trainings/workshops for the teachers for them to be able to delivery session on the areas of self, gender, career and computational thinking
• Develop an educational leadership model for different stakeholders – state, district, schools – blended learning approach.
• Developing a strategy for building a pool of master trainers in the state education department who will take the program approach forward. Facilitate their capacity building process.
• Facilitate and support the development of knowledge partnership in the states and facilitate all capacity building efforts
• Build and facilitate tech-enabled support systems for teachers – chatbots, online courses etc.
• Build the processes of collecting feedback and use data to understand content and capacity need

Content Design and Iteration

The program is looking to work with grades VI to X. The key thematic areas are: lifeskills, gender, digital literacy, coding (basic and advanced levels), career development. 

• Lead the process of content review and development process for the teacher led model of implementation
• Doing content research and identifying other organisations we can partner with
• Coordinating the content development process by organising the different workshops with the teachers and facilitators
• Map the existing curriculum developed by QUEST Alliance with National Education Policy and support in developing plan for curriculum integration in states
• Work closely with the SCERT and DIET Officials at state and district level in review and existing curriculum and identifying areas of integration. Also work to align the state’s teacher capacity building plan with the plan of Quest.
• Working closely with the content task force and the team of facilitators to ensure clarity on the content transaction
• Develop a content repository and keep updating it Work with the teachers to be able to develop content and build them into a repository for common use and sharing in the ecosystem
• Ensure quality in content translation and design

Building the knowledge partnership strategies

• Identify the NGOs, CSOs working in the districts and state to come together in taking in program elements in their program design. Support them with capacity building requirements.
• Provide technical input to partner facilitators on instructional design, STEM content, and pedagogy support
• Design flow for school based events or virtual events – career days, hackathons, parent teacher meets, teacher orientations, role model interactions and learning days. 

Implementation of the Programme

• Ensure that the program implementation plan is prepared and followed at all time
• Coach the team consisting of Associate Manager, Training & Content Officer, M&E Officer to be able to have workplans and execute their responsibilities
• Use the data and dashboard in helping the team to prepare for support of teachers and design implementation strategies.
• Support govt relations efforts at the district and state level to drive sustainable partnership and integration effort
• Manage relationship with the funders and supporters. Also engage in building more repository of funders for the regions. 

Requirements

Required skills and Experience: 

• Minimum 5-7 years of work experience, in implementing blended learning content for school related projects
• Hands-on experience with working on coding/ computational  skills/ STEM and life and career skills for school students
• Prior experience in content development and implementation
• Prior experience of having worked in state led scale up models while having a perspective on the content thematics (coding/ computational  skills/ STEM and life and career skills) of the program
• Prior experience of facilitating training and workshops for the govt. Teachers and officials at district/state level
• Willingness to learn and influence prevalent practices in education ecosystem
• Deep understanding of the National Education Policy and State Curriculum Framework
• Relevant education qualifications for handling pedagogy, STEM, and life skills content
• Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills in English and Assamese (preferred)
• Excellent IT skills
• Willingness to travel extensively
• Ability to train, build capacity of, and manage relationships with partner NGOs
• Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively with other teams