System Strengthening Technical Advisor Early Childhood Education (for the anticipated USAID ECE Program) – World Vision Ethiopia

 Purpose of the position:

The Early Childhood Education (ECE) Systems Strengthening Technical Advisor will provide technical leadership for the technical team with responsibility for all activities associated with strengthening systems practices related to early childhood education, positive parenting and social inclusion in Ethiopia. The specific objective is to strengthen the system’s capacity to provide, oversee and coordinate continuous high-quality, responsive early childhood development and education, at the federal, regional, district, Kebele and Household levels

Please note that this position is contingent upon funding and donor approval.

Major Responsibilities:

Early Childhood Education Analysis and Strategy Design

• Support in national and local level ECE policy, strategy, guidelines, and curriculum and structure analysis and use evidence to contribute to systems strengthening, advocacy and policy engagement efforts.
• Collaboratively map local systems focusing attention on the 5Rs resources, roles, relationships, rules and results.
• Support in identifying challenges and barriers to successful transition from ECE to primary and provide technical support to government in the design and implementation of transition approaches
• Lead the development of Early Childhood Education project strategy and ensure Early Childhood Education Analysis recommendations are integrated into project plans
• Update the project Early Childhood Education Strategy and system annually alongside the project work plan using formal and informal feedback.
• Support the CoP in proactively identifying potential implementation bottlenecks, key decision processes and decision-makers, and helping to expedite implementation of education system strengthening and sustainability measures as per relevant USAID guidance and strategies, annual work plans and country sustainability plans.
• Team up and work along inter and intra ECE staff and functions.

Project Implementation

• Support program offices, MOE, Regional education Bureaus and district education offices in ECE systems analysis and set up.
• Support with project reporting, ensuring that updates and progress on related indicators and successes are included in project reports and annual work plans.
• Work with and support project and MoE Monitoring, Evaluation, and Accountability and Learning (MEAL) teams to: develop context-specific and sector wide applicable indicators for Early Childhood Education; measure outcomes; and collect and analyze data to inform system strengthening, advocacy and policy efforts.

Coordination & Capacity Building

• Capacitate project state, partner and MoE staff in Early Childhood Education program on the working system strengthening and techniques.
• Ensure alignment with World Vision ECD priorities and strategies and complementarity between existing and planned programs.
• Represent Early Childhood Education system strengthening aspects of the project to external stakeholders, such as the donor, governments, and partners; disseminate learnings and best practices; and participate in technical working groups.
• Contribute to MoE ECE capacity building plans and curriculum implementation activities in connection to the USAID project.
• Promote strengthening of cross‐sector systems collaboration in Ethiopia, based on the country context, including with education, early childhood development.

Qualifications:  Education/Knowledge/Technical Skills and Experience

Required Professional Experience:

• Minimum of ten (10) years’ experience and demonstrated practical skills in the NGO sector
• Five+ years of experience demonstrating technical expertise in systems strengthening activities,
• Coaching and team building

Required Education, training, license, registration, and certification

• Master’s degree in ECE, Developmental Psychology, curriculum and Instruction, Educational Leadership, Social Sciences, or closely related fields
• Experience in systems analysis and contribution, engaging at policy level with policy and strategy development or analysis, at regional or Federal level, with particular focus on ECE and positive parenting programming, preferably in Ethiopia is highly desired;
• Demonstrated outstanding leadership, effective organizational development, partnership building, managerial, team building, and communications skills.
• Proven ability to coordinate with other key stakeholders such as governmental and non-governmental organizations in Ethiopia.
• Strong presentation and report writing skills.
• Experience of leading large and diverse teams.
• Experience in managing sub grants and contracts under grants for complex projects.
• Fluency in English.

Preferred Knowledge and Qualifications:

·         Sound knowledge and experience of effective and proven experiences of coaching large teams.

·         Sound knowledge and experience of on Early Childhood Education program

·         Excellent relationship building skills including ability to engage and influence across all levels with key decision makers / executives of a variety of key external organisations.

·         Excellent communication and interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to lead and work effectively in team.

·         Experience successfully building local capacity and local systems strengthening through programming

Travel and/or Work Environment

·         Work environment:  Office-based with some travel to project sites.

·         Travel:  The position requires ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 25 % of the time.

·         On call: as required