Job Opportunity for Program Associate, Schools Program at Quest Alliance in Bengaluru

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 schools for the past few years. In 2019, we rolled out a program to build 21st century skills and STEM mindsets among adolescent girls (grade 8 and 10) from government schools in 25 districts in Karnataka. Currently the programme is shifting towards a teacher led model for which it aims to build the capacity of the teachers to be able to become educators of the 21st century, demonstrating new age techniques and methods for engagement with learners for inculcating key 21st century skills among the learners as they graduate from schools.

The Program Associate will play a vital role in being the connect with the partners and she/he will support the teachers in the continuation of the MCT course uptake and completion of the course. The programme associate will work closely with the  tech associate and ensure solving queries of the partners teams and ensure all teachers complete the courses in time. Some of the key engagements of the Program Associate will be as follows.

Key Deliverables and Responsibilities:

Quest App: will be used for the completion of the e – learning by course completion, assignments  and workshops / webinars completed and track using inbuilt mechanisms.

STEM self-learning curriculum: The programme associate will be instrumental in supporting the student via whatsapp bot or digital student content access in schools

Partner team support Provide effective support to the partner school coaches and through school visits will be done by programme associate  to monitor the programme

Discussion Forums: Program Associate will manage, supervise and respond to any discussions during online teacher course engagement 

MasterClasses: help organize monthly MasterClasses with external guest faculty on interesting thematic areas related to pedagogical skills with the support of training manager scale. 

STEM clubs: She/he will ensure the stem club activities like learning days and project related and work with the LE team at Quest are done according to the project timelines

Teacher recognition: The programme associate will support the  Kantar project which helps recognise teachers adopting best practices. Work with the implementation team supports an exposure visit for 15 teachers and DIET faculty will be organized with support of the government department.

Teacher cohort formation:  Support for the Kantar programme team cohort of 25 teachers will be chosen for this and they will be involved in activities such as: Co-creation workshops and hosting webinars for Mastercoach, support for the Capacity building workshops and  Presence in forums such as Quest2Learn

Programme Implementation and Planning

• Support and be responsible for effective program delivery
• Contribute to the Design, plan and execute innovation and experimentation within schools
• Contribute to new content development for the MCT
• Maintain the database and dashboard, ensure that it is error-free and up to date. Ensure M&E adherence and quality works closely with the tech associate of Karnataka and larger edtech team.
• Continuous review of school implementation, monitoring the implementation within the agreed parameters and support the partner implementation teams.

Training, Content, Capacity Building and Documentation

• Participate and contribute to teacher cohort training.
• Ensure curriculum completion in school . Give timely feedback on content to program team
• Ensure that the STEM club projects are implemented within the districts and seek the support of the LE team as per requirements.
• Ensure the documentation including case studies, photographs, videos of the implementation schools is collected and reaches relevant team members.
• Be part of the content task force and support in content and programmatic related challenges and serve as liaison between the partner team and quest.

Relationship Management – Stakeholders 

• Build relationships with the District government officials, principals and teachers to facilitate smooth implementation of the Program, including liasioning conducting orientations, review meetings, monitoring visits etc.
• Be part of the planning process for the team to ensure an effective plan and budget is in place and it is adhered to.
• Support in anchoring team meetings and catch ups with partner team to handhold them throughout the implementation journey
• Essential to understand the overall school culture and environment and identify spaces, processes and opportunities to align the project approach into the school to transfer ownership of the project approach to school stakeholders

Reporting

• Document and share the best practices in the schools for publication in quarterly newsletters, social media and other channels.
• Provide regular written and verbal reports tracking progress against the work plan and implementation schedules
• Generate stem club activities, career game, parents engagement data across the implemented districts  and teachers MCT course completion via backend report and prepare analysis report on a timely basis and work with the M&E associate.
• Documenting and designing plans for following up with selected learners for in depth intervention to encourage them transition into higher education
• Use the appropriate M&E tools and the Dashboard to make sure that program implementation is data entered is being captured, represented and that project implementation is on track

Requirements

Required Skills and Experience:

• Minimum two years of work experience in facilitation of training, workshop or preferably in education development sector
• Willingness to learn and influence prevalent practices in education ecosystem
• Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills in English and Kannada(mandatory)
• Excellent IT skills
• Willingness to travel within and outside of the State
• Ability to train, build capacity of, and manage relationships with new people
• Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively with other teams
• Ability to use technology and various virtual platforms like Google Hangout Meet, Zoom, WhatsApp, Google Classroom, and other google suite applications.
• Excited about working with children on life skills and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)