Job Opportunity for Project Manager, Governance at Central Square Foundation in Bikaner

Position: Project Manager, Governance (Full Time)

Location: Bikaner, Rajasthan

Role: Project Management/ Stakeholder management

Experience Range: 3-5 years

About Central Square Foundation:

Founded in 2012, Central Square Foundation (CSF) is a non-profit philanthropic foundation working on 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.

About the team:

Private schools form an essential part of the Indian education landscape – approximately a third of all children study in private unaided schools, and over 16 states have more than 50% of students enrolled in private schools. The majority of these are ‘budget or affordable private schools, charging anywhere between ₹150 – 1,500 per child, per month. However, student achievement in these schools leaves much to be desired as the learning outcomes of students in private schools are only marginally better than those enrolled in government schools.

Central Square Foundation is working to address key challenges in this sector through piloting evidence-based solutions and helping governments in systemic reforms. Our work includes (i) promoting the use of learning data to foster focus on the learning outcome achievement among schools and shape parent demand, (ii) researching on private schools’ contribution to the sector, and (iii) building knowledge and awareness around pragmatic regulations focusing on learning outcome improvements in private schools.

About the role: This role is to ensure the objectives are met as we support the Directorate of Secondary Education, Bikaner, Rajasthan in their Competency-based Census Assessments (CCA).

Major work streams include: –

1. Project design and implementation: working with the state and the internal team members to design and manage CCA work and parent dissemination in Rajasthan state

2. Government stakeholder engagement: representing CSF as a credible partner while working with the key stakeholder across the Education Department Rajasthan, including the Directorate of Secondary Education (DoSE) Bikaner, Rajasthan State Council of Educational Research and Training (RSCERT) Udaipur, Rajasthan State Centre of National Informatics Centre (NIC) Jaipur, Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education Ajmer

3. Develop strategy on large scale assessments: Develop, refine and contextualise CSF’s work on large scale assessments and its data dissemination as per the state priorities

This role provides an excellent opportunity to shape CSF’s large scale assessments and governance work, and evangelise a learning quality marker for the schools across India, both public and private. It also affords a great opportunity to work with, and learn directly from, senior members across various teams at CSF.

The role will involve travelling within the state and to other states in India. Expect around ~30% of the time in other cities/towns/villages within the state and ~20% of the time to other states.

Required Qualifications:

• 3 to 5 years of work experience with at least 2 years in managerial responsibilities, demonstrating superb project management, project delivery and project leadership
• Hands on experience with large scale objective assessments in any industry, preferably in K-12 schooling set up
• Excellent research skills and the ability to analyse complex qualitative and quantitative data, craft possible solutions, and recommend actions

Required Skills and Abilities:

• Ability to lead meetings, deliver presentations, and represent CSF to external audiences, particularly in the government education sector organisations like the Ministry of Education, SCERT, directorate of education, Samagra Shiksha Vibhag, Vidya Samiksha Kendra, Examination Board etc
• Operating style suited to working in a small-organisation setting, where teamwork without any formal reporting and resourcefulness are highly valued
• Excellent leadership skills, including the ability to manage many multi-stakeholder projects at a time
• Ability to build and maintain positive and collaborative relationships both within and outside the organisation, including with colleagues, schools, regulators, foundations, researchers, grantees, and education product/service providers
• Ability to work independently and proactively, without support staff and with little supervision
• Entrepreneurial spirit and ‘can-do’ attitude
• Ability to be able to set one’s own priorities, plan timelines and meet deadlines
• Strong communication and presentation skills
• Optional: Master’s degree or equivalent in relevant fields viz. Education, Management, Economics, Social sciences and Public Policy