Website Quest Alliance
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.
Quest Alliance has implemented the Schools program since 2015 with a focus on introducing coding and 21st-century skills to students across grades 8th and 9th. In 2019 the secondary school program expanded to 8 states across 850 schools reaching over 2 lakh students with a sharpened focus on STEM. The program includes new technology exposure, career counseling, life skills development and gender sensitization through classroom and computer lab sessions that involve school authorities, teachers, volunteers and parents to create an ecosystem that encourages girls to pursue STEM. In Karnataka, our work covers 320 schools with an outreach of about 42,000.
As part of the Schools program, there are three key projects in Karnataka STEM for Girls, supported by IBM, EcosySTEM supported by Morgan Stanley and EcosySTEM project supported by Kantar.
Within the Schools program, the Program Manager will be anchoring all the Karnataka projects and supporting the other Karnataka model schools pathways project with a 60-40 distribution of the role respectively.
The aim of this project will be the following:
● Teacher Implementation: Build capacities of teachers for digital literacy, effective pedagogies to teach digital skills, build STEM mindsets, and 21st-century skills – all in alignment with the NEP through a blended learning approach using the MasterCoach app and online mentoring
● Develop and implement content for HM Change Leaders Karnataka
As the program manager, you will be managing all the school projects in Karnataka. This is an exciting opportunity to give shape to a project and convert ideas into action while working with a team on it. There will be space for innovation and experimentation while getting exposure to different aspects of project management.
Responsibilities
- Program Management
- Advocacy
- People Management
Program and Budget Management
●Develop the state plan and ensure its operationalization and achievement of goals with quality
●Ensure donor reporting happens as per timelines and with quality – capturing project learning and insights and making the report a tool for reflection for the donors
●Streamline the planning, implementation and review process with the partners
- Ensure they have an annual plan in place with a budget forecast
- Ensure the 45-day reviews are in happening as per plan and are documented and followed up on – ensure that the systems change lens is applied to the reviews
- Ensure partner engagement
●Ensure financial forecasting is in place for each project and the spent plan is as per forecast (no underspent/overspent) with maximum focus on the key constituency when it comes to prioritizing spent decisions
●Anchor the financial management to ensure audit compliance, review of the monthly project spent report to check for consistency and discrepancies
●Ensure state reviews are streamlined with the thematic leads and other relevant stakeholders and become spaces for reflections and deepening the synergy between org, program and state strategy, ensure data and qualitative insights are being used to drive reflection and deepen the strategic thinking
●Anchor the content development of the HM change leaders, ensuring suitability from the state context
●Monthly field visits to interact with the learners, teachers, headmasters and district officials to gauge the effectiveness of the program from the stakeholder lens
Advocacy:
●Develop and sustain the relationship with the Government Education departments and other concerned departments
●Drive the advocacy agenda for the state as per the program plan – relationship building with the states education departments and facilitating engagement with the relevant stakeholders to drive adoption of program approaches and policy level change, every 6 months JPRMS are conducted and become strategic spaces for multi-stakeholder dialogue – including the donor and the govt officials
●Work closely with the communication team to ensure that the project updates find a mention in social media, have a social media calendar
●Lead and participate in all program events to raise the profile of the organization
●Represent Quest Alliance in local and state forums and platforms
●Identify appropriate stakeholders and partners for program delivery as and when required
●Ensure that key staff at the state and district Government have a clear understanding of and regular involvement in the programs
●Identify opportunities for joint activities with the government staff (e.g. shared workshops etc.).
●Share quarterly reports with the relevant Government officials
Team Building and Development
●Ensure RFS compliance of the team – with personal and professional development goals in place
●Invest in creating learning opportunities for the team to learn from other teams in the program and in the Quest
●Ensure participation of self and team members in program and organization-related team spaces/forums/processes
●Ensure own compliance with RFS processes and have a learning plan for the year
●Build a culture of open communication, critical thinking, and agency within the team
●Ensure that the team members understand the big picture – org priorities and program strategies and their alignment with state/thematic strategy
●Ensure that the team plans are made in a consultative process and each team member has role clarity
● Actively develop second line leadership with the state team
Systems and processes
●Ensure that the team has a good understanding of the monitoring tools and dashboards
●Ensure that the data coming in from monitoring tools is reviewed jointly by the team and is integrated in reviews with partners and within the team
●Ensure that the quality of monitoring data coming in is of good quality and leading to insights and reflections on the program strategy
●Sub-grant tool management: Ensure the adoption of the sub-granting tool – within the team and partners
Organizational processes and policy adoption
●Be well versed with all organizational policies and ensure the same with the team
●Participate in the relevant working groups/organizational forums one is nominated/selected for
●Ensure all regular compliance – timesheets, travel reimbursements etc – are followed by self and the team
We are looking for people who:
●Are passionate about the challenges India is facing in the education and employability domain
●Have an exposure to work with building STEM mindsets in career exploration
●Can work with ambiguity and demonstrate problem-solving mindset
●Candidate should be flexible, self-motivated, enthusiastic, and an energetic team player
●Are enthusiastic about converting ideas into action and are great at execution and multitasking
●Are comfortable with technology being used in learning
Skill Sets:
●Have Managed teams in the past
●Ability to network and build relationships with the Government and partners
●Proficient in MS Office tools and Internet
●Planning and project management
Qualifications
●A Postgraduate degree in any discipline
●7+ years of team management experience preferably in the Education sector
●Proven ability to network and establish collaborative relationships with a variety of actors, including the Education department
●Good understanding and practical experience of STEM
●Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English and Kannada (mandatory).
●Managing remote teams
●A strong personal commitment to the values of Quest Alliance
Due to the enormity of applications received, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted!
To apply for this job please visit questalliance.zohorecruit.com.
