Job Opportunity for Project Manager, Amazon Future Engineers Programme at Peepul in Madhya Pradesh

About Peepul

Peepul is an education-focused non-profit. We dream and work towards creating an education system in India that enables ‘every child to realize their potential.’ We work closely with governments at the national, state, and local levels to transform government schools and government systems. The poorest children in India study in government schools and too many of them are falling through the cracks. We are determined to ensure that they receive a high-quality education to help them succeed in life.

Job Description: Project Manager, Amazon Future Engineers Programme
Location: Madhya Pradesh

Role Context

To improve the quality of the public school system and improve learning outcomes, the Department of Education, Government of Madhya Pradesh (GoMP) is on an ambitious reform agenda. This reform agenda includes a focus on accountability and governance, structural administrative reforms, capacity building of the state sector and learning from innovations and international best practices in pedagogy and delivery.

Peepul has partnered with the GoMP to strengthen learning outcomes from 2012 onwards through a deep partnership with the state. Through this partnership, we have also developed a deep understanding of the MP context, education landscape, and administrative support structures at the ground-level. Peepul is now deepening this partnership with GoMP through a multi-year state-wide program for developing and implementing initiatives towards high quality education outcomes in ‘CM Rise Schools’, a flagship programme of the School Education Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh, to create exemplar public schools that provide highquality holistic education to all children across Madhya Pradesh.

The CM Rise schools are envisioned to showcase quality teaching learning practices & innovative school management processes, and act as visual exemplars in the school system for all others to learn and derive motivation from.

About Amazon Future Engineers Programme

Amazon Future Engineer is a comprehensive childhood-to-career program aimed at increasing access to computer science education for children and young adults from underserved and underrepresented communities.

The scope of work for this program is to

1. Diagnose the existing computer science infrastructure across the CM Rise Schools in the state

2. Design, create and implement age appropriate and contextual computer science curriculum for the state.

3. Design and deliver capacity-building interventions for teachers and other key stakeholders of CM Rise Schools to build their implementation capacity.

4. Setting up of accountability and motivation structures in the schools and wider ecosystem

5. Setting up governance structures for the program to monitor impact

Role Description

We are looking for a Project Manager for designing and delivering the ‘Amazon Future Engineers’ (AFE) programme in the CM Rise Schools. This person will play a critical role in shaping the program and taking end to end ownership of the design and delivery of computer science (CS) curriculum and associated elements under the umbrella of AFE in CM Rise Schools. This will include building an understanding of the existing CS opportunities for students and teachers, designing use-cases for developing apt curriculum or enhancing existing one in collaboration with the programme teams, and supporting with the execution. This will entail piloting the programme in a limited set of schools and eventually scaling it by leveraging the government partnerships in the state.

The Project Manager must be someone with strong vision, deep operational and technological expertise, and dexterity in managing relationships with the multiple govt institutions. The Project Manager would be someone who can bring to bear understanding and expertise in project management, data analysis, technology, admin reforms and operations strategy.

Key Responsibilities

To identify project needs and develop holistic plans to achieve the intended outcomes

• Design and evolve the scope and sequence of the project plan using frameworks that best suit the needs of the program.

• Engage with internal and external stakeholders to foresee project path and guide your team in pivoting effectively.

• Identify and establish partnerships with multiple knowledge partners across the state towards a productive collaboration.

To advise and support the state on the roadmap for AFE in CM Rise Schools

• Present data backed research insights to the state government officials to support establishing a strong CS curriculum in schools

• Conduct regular needs assessments to identify needs and challenges of the stakeholders (internal as well as external) associated with the project

• Liaison with state government institutions (e.g., SCERT, College of Teacher Education) to ensure a seamless communication flow between the Peepul team and all the key stakeholders.

To lead impact assessment

• Set systems and processes to track project milestones, outputs and outcomes of the program.

• Create structures to track, identify and share data regularly with key internal and external stakeholders.

• Work closely with the senior leadership team to meet funder requirements, including but not limited to creating periodic progress / impact reports

• Arrange field visits for supporters / funders / senior leadership team at appropriate junctions of the program to showcase progress and impact of the program

To lead the execution and implementation of the programme at scale

• Collectively work with team members in the state towards high quality execution of the program on ground sharing key insights.

• Collaborate with Delhi programmes to learn from coding and computer science curriculum that has been piloted and tested.

• Work closely with Computer Science teachers in the state to develop a contextualised coding curriculum.

• Codify best practices from the program and disseminating them internally and externally towards building knowledge of the organization and allowing replication across the ecosystem.

• Recruit and Manage a team of project coordinators towards successful and smooth work execution

Person Specification

Experience:

• 5 years+ of total work experience, out of which at least 2 must be in managing projects at scale.

• Basic knowledge of coding, technical architecture, design thinking and UI/UX design would be desirable.

• A graduate/post-graduate degree in Social Work/STEM/MBA will be desirable.

• Experience with web-based data collection management, monitoring surveys and working with government and technology stakeholders is desirable.

Recruitment Process

To apply, please send a copy of your resume along with a covering letter explaining why you are interested in applying for the role, to recruitment@peepulindia.org with a cc to nivedita.gupta@peepulindia.org, ensuring you specify the role you are applying for in the subject line of the e-mail. Please include the details of at least two referees within your application.

Reference checking & Probation

As you will be working with children this role will be subject to enhanced background checks. Additionally, all new staff will be subject to a probation period of three months.

Selection

The selection process will involve written tests/assignments and interviews with the senior management of the organization.