Ireland: Senior Education Adviser

Working with the world’s poorest people to transform their lives. Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organisation dedicated to tackling poverty and suffering in the world’s poorest countries. We work in partnership with the very poorest people in these countries, directly enabling them to improve their lives, as well as using our knowledge and experience to influence decisions made at a local, national and international level that can significantly reduce extreme poverty.

Senior Education Adviser

Job Title:

Senior Education Adviser

Reports to:

Head, Technical Assistance, Strategy, Advocacy and Learning Department (and ultimately, Director of SAL)

Liaises with:

Dublin (in exceptional cases another location where Concern Worldwide has an office will be considered).

The incumbent will be expected to travel overseas up to 30% of the time.

Job Location:

Dublin

Contract Details:

Permanent

Pay Band:

6 (€47,742 - €56,167)

Job Purpose:

The Senior Education Adviser will provide guidance on the strategic direction of the education programmes and facilitate the link to our work in other areas. They will be responsible for identifying areas for new and innovative programmes; and ensuring country teams are provided with appropriate technical assistance in the area of education. The Senior Education Adviser will also manage a small team of technical advisers in the area of Education.

Main duties &Responsibilities:

· Provide technical advice to country programmes on Basic Education, specifically this covers a minimum of (a) early grade reading (b) school related GBV or (c) education in emergencies.

· Provide technical direction to the organisation in terms of its policy and strategy in basic education, in line with international policies and best practice.

· Provide technical leadership on education research initiatives, particularly the Safe Learning Model in Sierra Leone, and lead collaboration with academic research partners on education.

· Coordinate the activities and management of those in the team and ensure that the country programmes identified as requiring most support receive this assistance in a coordinated manner.

· Manage the adviser(s) on the team, including ensuring PDRs are performed on time, regular team meetings are held, along with regular one to one feedback sessions with staff.

· Lead external representation and networking of Concern’s education programme through appropriate networks and conferences. This will include co-leading the INEE Conflict Sensitive Education Working Group and participation in the Global Working Group to End SRGBV.

· Provide SMT and Council with regular updates on performance against policy and strategy.

· Lead the production of internal and external learning papers, technical briefs and tools to improve the quality of Concern’s education responses.

· Coordinate capacity-building initiatives for education staff globally, including workshops, webinars and training opportunities.

· Coordinate with the advocacy team to ensure a link between advocacy work and the implementation of activities at field level in the technical area.

· Coordinate with the fundraising, grants and International Programmes Department teams to ensure technical support is provided to proposal development.

· Identify and recruit (on an annual basis) interns and junior staff from identified university courses and ensure they receive adequate mentoring and support.

· Act as a primary point of contact for representation in their technical area.

· Manage specific grants that have been provided to support our work from a financial and technical perspective.

Person specification:

Essential:

· A Masters Level Degree in a relevant discipline, with an understanding of global education issues.

· A minimum of five years’ experience with an international NGO (or equivalent) in the education sector with at least three years of which have been spent overseas.

· Experience in representing an international NGO with potential education donors (both institutional and private sector).

· Competence using quantitative, qualitative and participatory methods for programme planning / design, monitoring, evaluation and operations research

· Empathy with organisational vision, mission, goals and objectives

· Excellent interpersonal, communication and writing skills in English

Desirable:

· Experience in social and behavioural change communication methodologies.

· Experience in gender-based violence and equality interventions

· Experience developing, applying and analysing results of literacy assessment tools

· Good knowledge/ experience in operational/ action research design and principles

· Familiarity with HIV mainstreaming, rights-based approach, partnership approaches, and standards for humanitarian interventions.

Concern has a Programme Participant Protection Policy and an organisational Code of Conduct which have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organisation, and the standards of behaviour expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organisation to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concern’s core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Programme Participant Protection Policy and the Concern Staff Code of Conduct as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Programme Participant Protection Policy and the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the contents of both the Concern Code of Conduct and the Programme Participant Protection Policy and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these two documents.

Concern receives a substantial amount of funding from external donors each year. Increasingly donors are introducing requirements whereby future funding is conditional on Concern ensuring that the names of any new employee or volunteer do not appear on terrorism lists generated by the European Union (List of person, groups and entities to which Regulation (EC No. 2580/2001 applies), the US Government (Office of Foreign Assets Control list of specially designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) and the United Nations (Consolidated List).

Any offer of employment (either paid or voluntary) with Concern Worldwide will only be made following a successful clearance check being conducted on the applicant. For additional information please consult our web site or contact the Human Resource Division in our Head Office.

By submitting a formal application for paid or voluntary employment to Concern, you agree to Concern carrying out a clearance check as outlined above and that Concern will not proceed to recruit you should your name appear on any of the aforementioned lists.

To apply:

*Please Email your CV and Cover letter through www.concern.net/jobs by closing date 20^th December, 2016.*

Candidates must be legally entitled to work in Ireland, at the time of application