Job Opportunity for Head – Girls Education Program at Care India in Delhi

POSITION/DESIGNATION

Head – Girls’ Education Program (GEP)

GRADE/LEVEL

C

PROJECT/UNIT

SPU 1

PROJECT DURATION

3 Years

REPORTS TO

Executive Director – Education, Livelihoods, Humanitarian

LOCATION

New Delhi

TRAVEL

40% travel time to CARE India’s projects in various locations.

ABOUT US

CARE is a not-for-profit organisation working in India for over 70 years, focusing on alleviating poverty and social injustice. We do this through well-planned and comprehensive projects in health, education, livelihoods and disaster preparedness and response. Our overall goal is the empowerment of women and girls from poor and marginalised communities leading to improvement in their lives and livelihoods.

During FY 2020-21, CARE India directly reached out to 52.7 million people through 53 programmes across 18 states, covering more than 130+ districts. We are part of the CARE International Confederation, working in 100 countries for a world where people live with dignity and security.

CARE India seeks a world of hope, tolerance, and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security.

Our goal is to ensure that women and girls from the most marginalized communities are empowered, live in dignity and their households have secure and resilient lives. CARE India aims to accomplish this goal by working with 50 million people to help them have quality health, education, livelihoods and overcome the effects of disasters.

Our employees are committed to CARE’s values, Code of Conduct, and safeguarding commitments towards a safe workplace for all, including the principle of ‘do no harm’. They are also responsible to uphold and strengthen our safeguarding commitments in their role. To know more about our safeguarding policies please visit our website link given below.

JOB SUMMARY

This position offers opportunity for an experienced professional to provide technical leadership towards building the Girls’ Education portfolio in CARE India’s programming. CARE India’s program goal is to ensure that “women from the most marginalized communities are empowered, live in dignity, and their households and communities are secure and resilient”. 

The Head – GEP will lead development and advancement of CARE India’s Education strategy to address quality and effectiveness of foundational learning and adolescent girls’ leadership education in India through girls’ education initiatives. Specifically, the position is responsible for developing innovative approaches and strategies, and new models of girls’ education in the domains of promoting strong foundational literacy and numeracy and 21st century skills and STEM education as impacting universal and quality education. S/he will also be responsible for ensuring effective and innovative solutions for addressing the deep rooted causes of poverty and inequality, especially those faced by girls and marginalized sections; providing cutting-edge technical assistance on girls’ education to CARE India’s long-term programs; developing and facilitating implementation of innovative methods to track gender transformative changes, including research and documentation; building capacities of staff across CARE India and its partners; developing toolkits, methods, and guidelines; developing measurement standards and knowledge management; representing and networking with key stakeholders within CARE India, CARE International, and outside the organization to promote learning, reflection, and knowledge building; and helping craft and advance an advocacy agenda to catalyze wider social change.

S/he will ensure that CARE India’s work in Girls’ Education contributes to the overall mission of the organization, reflects the program approach, advances CARE India’s Strategic Programming Framework (SPF), and is of high technical quality.

This position will work closely with a range of staff in CARE India, including other sector (education, health, disaster management and Gender equality) and project teams to deliver high quality economic development programs. The measure of success for this position will be in two parts with equal emphasis, namely, developing and promoting high quality, innovative, and impactful economic development approaches and interventions; and working with a cross-section of CARE India’s staff to guide, coach, handhold, and influence them on various aspects of economic development programming.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Research, Innovation and Knowledge Management

• Contribute to identifying research priorities and initiate research in key areas that will advance CARE India’s Education programming.
• Lead action research initiatives by designing and launching innovative pilot projects for the purpose of developing new education models that are efficient, and scalable.
• Ensure that innovations in education approaches, strategies, models are adequately studied and incorporated in CARE India’s education programming.
• Develop cutting edge cross-sector programs in association with other colleagues in CARE India and in partnership with other institutions.
• Ensure that innovations within CARE India’s education projects are studied, documented and appropriately disseminated.
• Set up mechanisms for knowledge gathering, analysis and dissemination both within CARE India and with partners in the larger sector; develop quality knowledge products for knowledge dissemination, promoting sectoral dialogues, and for organizational positioning
• Participate in and contribute to appropriate state, national and international alliances and coalitions for education, including thematic groups of CARE International.

Portfolio Development

• Education portfolio development, determining resource requirements and resource mobilization strategies.
• Track emerging knowledge and learning in education, including cutting edge approaches, strategies and models, and work for dissemination, reflection and adoption in CARE India’s programming.
• Lead the development of innovative and impactful program approach by identifying and pursuing various opportunities related to FLN, ECCE, STEM and 21st Century skills 
• Work with state teams and local partners to sharpen education strategies for testing locally appropriate and innovative program models and implementing them at scale.
• Develop a flagship approach on gender transformative change for girls’ education program, and coordinate processes to regularly reflect and refine the approaches.
• Develop and nurture relationships with a wide range of actors, including donors, peer organizations, academia, networks, research and advocacy organizations to map opportunities to advance gender equality and diversity integrated programming in CARE India.
• Consistently monitor policy environment, and directions in government and corporate sector to advance education outcomes, share this internally, and facilitate use of information in program development.
• Identify key public and private institutions and pursue partnerships towards developing education programs and research work.
• Develop new institutional mechanisms/arrangements that advances education program strategy and in managing these.
• Ensure close coordination and cooperation with colleagues to achieve synergy and impact across programs and geographic areas of operation.

Technical Assistance

• Fully map the requirements for technical assistance on education from project teams and develop plans to provide timely assistance through the technical team.
• Develop roadmaps for effective assistance through proper planning and coordination, and effectively implement the same.
• Develop innovative and appropriate technical briefs, approach notes, content, tools, methods, internal processes, and systems for quality and timely delivery of technical assistance.
• Keep track of development of various technical tools and methods and examine relevance and possibilities of incorporating these within education programming.
• Disseminate technical tools and methods across various projects and support in adoption of these through capacity building, onsite support and offsite guidance
• Support project teams in quality reporting and documentation by contributing quality analysis and grounded technical content to reports, publications and other knowledge products emanating from project experiences.
• Support development of monitoring and learning frameworks for CARE India’s education programs and contribute to organizational Impact Reports. 

Networking and Advocacy

• Identify areas where CARE India can influence policy and advocate for change in line with our overall strategy, and contribute to advocacy efforts
• Represent and assist project teams to represent CARE India’s work on Girls’ Education with CARE International and with other stakeholders.
• Identify areas where CARE India can influence Education related policy and advocate for change at different levels in line with the organization’s advocacy strategy and contribute to advocacy efforts and campaigns as appropriate.
• Establish professional linkages with skilled individuals and institutions to develop partnerships that will advance education programming, and in line with the education strategy-guided partnership maps.
• Participate in and contribute to appropriate state, national and international alliances and coalitions on ECCE, FLN, Life Skills, 21st Century 
• Conceptualize and support research on policy issues of relevance to education of the impact population identified by CARE India.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

This position will work closely with a range of staff in CARE India, including other sector (education, health, disaster management and Gender equality) and project teams

QUALIFICATION & EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Post Graduate degree in Education, Social Sciences or any equivalent qualification with at least 15 years of relevant experience in the development sector particularly in implementation of gender equity and diversity initiatives within the Education domain

SKILLS & COMPETENCIES

Communication skills:

• Demonstrated interpersonal, communication and presentation skills. 

Language skills:

• Excellent writing and communication skills in English. Skills of communicating in Hindi and / or one of the dominant Indian languages would be desirable  

Research skills:

• High level of conceptual and analytical skills with the ability to develop approach papers, concept notes, proposals, etc.

Team Management & Collaboration / People skills: 

• Excellent people management and leadership skills.
• Good representation and networking skills.
• Excellent facilitation and capacity building skills.
• Ability to negotiate and influence at all levels.

Operational excellence (Project / Program / Process management):

• Expertise and demonstrable experience in at least one of the core education thematic of CARE India – ECCE, FLN, STEM, 21st Century Skills, Adolescent education programming
• Deep understanding and demonstrable engagement with the National Education Policy at Central and/or State level