Job Opportunity for Program Coordinator, Secondary Schools at Quest Alliance in Bengaluru

Job Description
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 Secondary 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 sensitisation 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 Secondary Schools program there are three key projects: STEM for Girls, supported by IBM, MyCode supported by Capegmini and EcosySTEM  project supported by Kantar.

Within the Secondary Schools program, the Program Coordinator will be anchoring the EcosySTEM project and supporting the STEM for Girls project.

The aim of this project will be the following:

• School Implementation: Boost education at the secondary education level, encouraging girls to complete 10th grade and pursue higher education with a focus on creating STEM mindsets through project-based learning
• Teacher Implementation: Build capacities of teachers for digital literacy, effective pedagogies to teach digital skills, build STEM mindsets, 21st-century skills – all in alignment with the NEP through a blended learning approach using the MasterCoach app and online mentoring

As the Program Coordinator you will be managing the school project across districts being implemented and support other programs across Karnataka as well. 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. 

Responsibility:

1. Programme Implementation

• Anchor the work plan and ensure all program deliverables are met
• Take responsibility for effective program delivery, review implementation, monitor within the agreed standards
• Ensure there is a work plan in place for the state/region and everyone is able to contribute and implement accordingly. Ensure that the state leads are in loop of the project deliverables and milestones.
• Anchor the Virtual engagement and content curation for the state/region with regard to continuous stakeholder learning
• Identify and develop learning within program and facilitate the capturing of these learnings
• Provide coordination support to the state engagement for leveraging the objectives of the program
• Continue to support the overall team development with constant exploration with new skills and perspectives.
• Provide coordination support for content curation and training support facilitation by working closely with the Training Manager and the Content manager.
• Drive experimentation and innovation strategies within the direct implementation schools

2. Monitoring and Reporting

• Anchor the Monitoring and Review process with continuous validation by
• Making field visits and documenting case studies
• Updating plans and reviews on Monday
• Ensuring data collection and quality on kobo
• Work together with M&E focal points to track program Progress based on the Monitoring and Evaluation framework.
• Lead on reporting both internal and external, in accordance with the program M&E framework and based on the regular reporting agreements of the project.
• Engage with the project monitoring data to pull out the insights/patterns and share it back with team to identify good practices and areas of improvement.
• Ensure the baseline and endline for the project are completed 

3. Support functions for Project Implementation 

• Work closely with the communication team to ensure that the project updates find a mention in the social media, have a social media calendar 
• Work with the communication team on the project video
• Work with the people and operations team to ensure that the donor report goes out on time
• Work with the Karnataka Program Manager to ensure that the updates are reaching the relevant government authorities on time 

4. People Management 

You will be coordinating with School coaches, District resource persons, Program Associates/Program Officers all the program states for the school implementation. 

This will include the following: 

• Coordinate closely with the state teams to support the implementation of the program
• Participating actively in the planning activities and team reviews
• Contributing to overall program strategy and events
• Demonstrate cross learning across different states for greater leveraging of diversity.
• Support, mentor and coach the fellows/facilitators as part of their professional development and help them to be highly effective in their work.
• Ensure weekly, monthly and quarterly review meetings with the fellows 

5. Relationship and Partnership Building and Management. 

• Identify, develop and manage relevant partnerships with other CSOs to implement the program effectively
• Review partner proposals, manage oversight of budgets, project reviews.
• Develop and sustain the relationship with the Government Education departments and other concerned departments
• Coordinate effective field visits for the donors to understand the progress of the program being implemented this would include scheduling appointments with relevant government ministries.
• Lead and participate in all program events to raise the profile of the organisation
• Represent Quest Alliance in local and state forums and platforms
• Identify appropriate stakeholders and partners for program delivery as and when required
• Ensure MoUs with key partner organisations are in place and operational;
• 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
• Identify opportunities in the project for donor engagement – volunteering, events

Requirements

We are looking for people who: 

• Are passionate about the challenges India is facing in education and employability domain
• Have an exposure to work with building STEM mindsets in  career exploration