Job Opportunity for Project Lead (EdTech – NDEAR) at Central Square Foundation in New Delhi

Founded in 2012, Central Square Foundation is a non-profit philanthropic foundation working with 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 the learning outcomes of children, especially from low-income communities.

We believe that effective foundational learning is essential for better learning outcomes for all children in school. Development of foundational literacy and numeracy skills by Class 3 can help children progress to higher levels of learning which is an essential building block for creating equal access to opportunities needed for leading a better life.

In order to achieve this, we partner with individuals and social impact organizations to bring innovative solutions in education, as well as work with the government to drive systemic impact. We also collaborate with the ecosystem to leverage knowledge and create resources to address critical issues in early learning, technology in education, classroom instruction methods and governance.

CSF’s team members bring a deep sense of commitment and passion towards our collective vision that every child deserves quality education. We strive for excellence in everything we do and collaborate to create an impact. We encourage an entrepreneurial outlook that evokes new and bold ideas along with taking smart risks. CSF provides a dynamic, learning and positive environment that is driven by our strong sense of values.

Position Summary

One of the key areas of CSF’s work is EdTech (Education Technology). Under this thematic area, we focus on how technology can be leveraged to improve the teaching-learning experience within classrooms and at homes – through both student-focussed and teacher directed interventions. Our goal is to leverage technology to improve foundational learning in primary grades and provide remediation support in middle school.

We do this by funding the creation of public goods to improve the quality of the supply, providing grants to build capacity of early-stage organizations that cater to the target population, building evidence on the efficacy of different EdTech solutions to understand what works and what doesn’t, through government test beds and by driving innovation within government systems by reforming public policy advocacy and strengthening government capacity to enable sustainable large-scale adoption.

One of the key projects where we are currently supporting the Ministry of Education is National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR). In line with the National Education Policy 2020, the Ministry of Education has envisioned NDEAR to be a digital infrastructure for education that will not only help the government at Centre, State and UTs but the entire education ecosystem including private sector, non-profit and technology players to enhance the quality of education in the country through innovation and experimentation. It is part of Govt. of India’s Digital India initiative and it endeavors to make lives simpler and teaching-learning more effective for students, parents, teachers and administrators.

The Project Lead, EdTech will work closely with the Additional Secretary, MoE and also thePMU  that will be established for implementation of NDEAR. The Project Lead, EdTech role directly  reports to the Director, EdTech at CSF.

Key Responsibilities, but not limited to

• Provide strategic inputs to Additional Secretary at Ministry of Education on the NDEAR project
• Help create alignment on NDEAR related issues between and MoE officials and the technical team
• Provide strong project management oversight to ensure that the project is on-track and bring any variances to the attention of Additional Secretary
• Ensure that project updates are provided at agreed-upon frequency
• Act as a bridge between CSF and MoE on the NDEAR project so asto ensure that relevant expertise within CSF is fully leveraged for NDEAR

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities

• 5-8 years of experience in Project Management in the IT sector. Specific exposure to large scale, open architecture platforms preferable, especially on government projects
• Desire to contribute to creation of technology-driven public platforms
• Proven ability to contribute to user-centric technology solutions delivered at scale
• A self-starter with a proven ability to work independently
• Experience of demystifying and communicating technology concepts to non-tech users and vice-versa
• Strong verbal and written communication skills

Compensation

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