GRADE: 8

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Education

LOCATION: Kathmandu, Nepal

CONTRACT LENGTH: July 2018

CHILD SAFEGUARDING: Level 2- either the role holder will have access to personal data about children and/or young people as part of their work; or they will be working in a ‘regulated’ position (accountant, barrister, solicitor, legal executive); therefore a police check will be required (at ‘standard’ level in the UK or equivalent in other countries).

ROLE PURPOSE:  
The Education Director leads Save the Children in Nepal/Bhutan education sector, consisting primarily of Early Childhood Care and Development, Basic Education, and Education in Emergencies programs. The Director plays a lead role in setting the strategic direction for the education sector, designing new programs and projects, and identifying and pursing strategic partnerships. S/he is responsible for ensuring program quality and donor accountability for a range of projects, and directly supervises project Managers and implementation teams. S/he plays a senior representational and advocacy role with the Government of Nepal, donors, and key national and international stakeholders, and works on a regular basis with SC members and internal stakeholders to maximize program delivery. The Director ensures that program learning, research and evaluation findings are channelled towards advocacy, continuous improvements, and new program design. 

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY: 
Strategic Direction, Program Design and Development 

• Take lead role in formulating CO’s vision for long term programming in Education in Nepal.
• Introduce innovative ideas and approaches to support children’s education in Nepal; Identify needs and opportunities for potential programs, through situation analyses/feasibility studies, networking, and leveraging research and evaluation findings from both internal and external sources.  
• Work with Save the Children staff to develop funding strategies and proposals to expand the Education portfolio in line with strategic priorities and technical best practice from a range of sources. This will involve continuously developing concepts and innovations and packaging them for a range of donors, both for proactive and reactive fundraising efforts.
• Continuously assess staffing patterns and competencies to ensure that right staff are in place to support sector needs and development
• Identify and pursue opportunities for synergistic, inter-sectoral programs to address the holistic needs of children, especially the most deprived. Ensure the integration of DRR in education, as well as integration of development strategies into the Education in Emergencies portfolio. 
• Ensure that Education activities (as relevant) contribute to sponsorship goals and meet agency significant benefit standards.

Programme Management:

• Direct line management and supervision of COP/Program/Project Directors overseeing Education programmes, and ongoing support, guidance and leadership to managers and staff working on those programmes.
• Ensure that Save the Children complies with donor and SCI regulations on all projects, including submission of high quality and timely reports. 
• Lead in the development of a planning cycle for the Education sector, including annual, quarterly and monthly planning and work plan follow up.
• Ensure that all programs have an effective Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning (MEAL) practices throughout the program cycle.
• Ensure tight financial oversight of project and thematic budgets, maintaining timely expenditure in line with agreed priorities and donor guidelines. 
• Build the capacity of staff in programme management, technical excellence and policy analysis and influencing related to Education
• Build and nurture effective teamwork within education sector both at central and field levels and ensure a cohesive workplace environment for optimum staff retention.
• Supervise team and provide necessary guidance to ensure that program targets are met. 

Programme Quality:

• Identify internal and external capacity building opportunities and resources to provide high quality technical assistance to Education projects, supporting technical staff, partner agencies and others to build knowledge and technical competence.
• Integrate programme learning across the Education sector, ensuring coherence of technical approaches across programmes, identifying best practice, and ensuring inter-sectoral complementarity.
• Ensure that regular field based project review meetings take place and are attended by the relevant staff;   Ensure that monitoring systems provide information in the appropriate form and at the right time (in different levels) to allow for effective decision making
• Provide on-going and one-off technical support and advice to programs and partners as needed
• Organize workshops, seminars, Program Learning Group meetings at local, national, regional and international levels
• Develop and implement strategies to ensure gender equity, child participation and beneficiary accountability in all Education programmes.

Research and organizational learning:

• Ensure that interventions are evaluated using appropriate methods, including process and impact evaluations, and that evidence is rigorously maintained, documented and disseminated internally and externally, to contribute to improvements in programme quality and advocacy efforts.
• Identify and pursue opportunities to disseminate technical materials, learning and best practices, such as workshops, targeted communications materials, etc. 
• Support teams to identify and carry out operational research related to education.
• Ensure that Save the Children’s regional and global experience is reflected in our Education program
• Share CO’s experience and organizational learning with COs as well as with relevant organizations over the globe 

Policy and Advocacy:   

• Coordinate closely with the Policy, Research and Governance sector on policy and advocacy work relating to education
• Lead on policy and advocacy for the education sector, ensuring that education technical interventions are designed to inform relevant policy concerns. Develop policy briefs and position papers, ensuring the inclusion of technical input from the relevant project managers. 
• Lead in networking and articulating Save the Children’s position, policy and strategy in national forums and meetings.  Engage in key debates related to national education sector policies and programs, in coordination with technical colleagues and other relevant staff.
• Identify appropriate strategic partnerships for joint advocacy initiatives on education issues

Representation and Networking:

• Maintain working relationships with relevant Ministries, especially the Ministry and department of Education, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and their education programs and connect flagship programs with government and other non-government interventions
• Identify partnerships/collaborations and build strong networks with other NGOs, CSOs, donors, UN agencies and academic institutions and the private sector working on education to collaborate on programs, joint learning, analysis and advocacy initiatives
• Ensure that the country office has effective representation on national, regional and international networks and fora related to education, and that we participate in conferences/meetings that will enhance our reputation and programming
• Actively participate in technical coordination meetings to ensure synergies with other agencies in our development work and emergency responses 
• Maintain excellent relationships with donors, both in terms of strategic positioning and program delivery
• Ensure that CO has effective and appropriate representation on national, regional and international Education related forum and participates/contributes to conferences, workshops and meetings that will enhance our programs.
• Represent CO on the Regional and Global meetings on education, both internal and external.

Participate in CO leadership, planning and reporting:

• Participate in SMT as invitees and ESMT meetings and attend other meeting both within and outside SC; represent SC whenever requested by the Supervisor
• Participate actively in the Country Annual Planning and Country Annual Reporting, providing oversight and compiling the reports for the education sector. Ensure that the annual program planning and budget for Education is prepared according to SCI requirements
• Provide planning, general oversight and leadership to development of the Country Strategic Plans
• Other tasks as requested by the Deputy Country Director – Program Operations 
• Support the Save the Children Humanitarian responses where appropriate, ensuring timely and quality responses in line with international standards and technical best practice. 

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:

ESSENTIAL : 

• Master degree in Education or related social sciences with 10 years (7 years for GSI group*) working experience in relevant discipline(s) including at least 05 years in senior management position.
• Strong leadership abilities, leading and inspiring others
• Excellent understanding of key issues and strategies in state of the art Early Childhood Development and Basic Education programs, formal and non-formal Education theories 
• Excellent skills on process facilitation and coordination with high standard.     
• Excellent inter-personal communication skills
• Strong analytical capacity and proficient understanding of both qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Good presentation skills including policy briefing 
• Good supportive supervision skills, developing self and others
• Good English communication skills
• Delivering results
• Problem solving and decision making
• Innovating and adapting

Desirable: 
Advanced knowledge about the Education policy and context in Nepal