Director of District Support, Reach to Teach, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

1. POSITION VACANT: Director of District Support, Reach to Teach, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

2. ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND:

- Reach to Teach (RTT) is an education charity that works with governments and other like-minded organisations, to improve the quality of primary education. RTT exists to transform the lives of children in remote and marginalised communities in India, by focusing on transforming classroom teaching practices and teacher-to-child engagement.

- Founded in 2003, RTT has grown into an established charity improving the learning outcomes of children in the state of Gujarat and believes that the most important factor in improving children's learning, is the quality of teaching. RTT's technical team has helped successfully deploy international best practices in education, at rural schools in Gujarat and is committed to ensuring that the same are extended and adopted by all schools, state-wide.

- RTT is working in coalition with other organisations, to support Government of Gujarat's ongoing efforts to deliver systemic change to ensure better foundational literacy and numeracy outcomes.

About the Project: Gujarat Education Coalition (GEC):

- The Gujarat Education Coalition (GEC) works collaboratively to co-create and deliver a comprehensive and scalable program to improve the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) outcomes in Gujarat.

- Working closely with the Reach to Teach (RTT) Education Leadership resources, GEC team will deploy RTT's expertise and knowledge of international best practices in the development of education professionals. This shall enable RTT to support the Gujarat Council of Education Research and Training (GCERT) in developing and delivering its programmes.

- The initial work of the team will involve scoping and understanding the work of GCERT to identify where it will be able to add value in accordance with the Reach to Teach mandate to promote Quality Teaching and Learning.

For more information about Reach to Teach, please visit http://reach-to-teach.org/

3. JOB DESCRIPTION/ RESPONSIBILITIES:

- Reporting to the Country Director, the Director of District Support shall be responsible for supporting the state to set up DSUs to drive the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) program, initially focusing on set up and operations of DSUs in the 5 focus districts, and scaling this across the state in future years. This will be done through the creation of district support teams, including both Gujarat Education Coalition (GEC) and Government team members to ensure a collaborative approach. S/he will be responsible for obtaining government buy-in for all DSU interventions before they are rolled out and ensuring regular reporting of progress and challenges to the government officials involved in the FLN programme.

- S/he will be responsible for establishing and maintaining strong working relationships with key government officials involved in the FLN program at both state and district levels, especially heads of departments, senior district officials, and elected representatives.

- The post holder will also oversee consistency in program architecture and implementation, especially within the five focus districts, ensuring alignment on design/development of products/ interventions and identification and sharing of good practices across the programme.

Key Roles and Responsibilities:

(1) Responsible for establishing and maintaining strong working relationships with key government officials involved in the FLN program at both state and district levels, especially heads of departments, senior district officials, and elected representatives;

(2) Responsible for obtaining government buy-in for all DSU interventions before they are rolled out and ensuring regular reporting of progress and challenges to the government officials involved in the FLN programme;

(3) Oversee consistency in program architecture and implementation, especially within the five focus districts, ensuring alignment on design/ development of products/ interventions and identification and sharing of good practices across the programme;

(4) Develop strategies for engaging with key stakeholders at the state and district levels for the success of DSUs, including development of formal communications and agreements at all levels;

(5) Support in the training and development of government officials on the role of the DSUs;

(6) Lead and deliver some - quick wins that can be implemented rapidly to address urgent needs/ deliver immediate results/ build relationships at district level;

(7) Work with the GEC Program Management & Operations team to design DSU processes and structures;

(8) Work with the GEC Leadership Team and the Teaching and Learning Workstream to design scaling of DSUs across Gujarat from year two onwards, including model design, org structures, systems and processes;

(9) Liaise with the M&E team, especially Action Research Managers deployed in DSUs to design and roll out action research interventions in the focus districts;

(10) Oversee the flow of monitoring data from districts for project level consolidation by the M&E team;

(11) Travel frequently to the focus districts to meet with the project team and the key government officials and other local stakeholders like the district education committee members;

(12) Oversee the consolidation of feedback and learning from districts and feed this into course correction and redesign, if required;

(13) Responsible for leading, managing and supporting the team involved in DSUs (approximately 38 team members). This includes supporting recruitment, induction, capacity building and performance management of the team;

(14) Redress issues and grievances from the DSUs in an effective and timely manner;

(15) Work with DSU team members in identifying dependencies and synergies as well as roadblocks and risks and work with them to mitigate those risks;

(16) Oversee resource allocation to ensure effective distribution of resources across the DSUs;

(17) Draw up DSU budgets, manage the budgets and oversee financial reporting;

(18) Represent RTT and GEC in government meetings, networks and forums, as required by the Country Director.

Communication and Stakeholder Management:

(i) Develop and implement communication strategies to promote activities and plans internally and externally as required. Communicating complex, highly specialist or technical, information using different formats to a range of audiences to ensure clear and consistent understanding;

(ii) Work closely with the various teams, to ensure that data is accurate, live and appropriate for relevant audiences and feeds back into program improvement;

(iii) Network with fellow team members, government colleagues and professionals across the sector and relevant professional bodies as needed. Attend regional and national meetings and conferences to gain and share knowledge and experience;

(iv) Regularly update internal and external stakeholders of progress and changes on performance milestones and issues.

Teamwork & People Management:

(i) Embed collaborative problem-solving practices within the teams;

(ii) Collaborate with the RTT and GEC teams to ensure the successful delivery of services and interventions and manage performance issues, conduct reviews, and formulate development plans for team members to meet current and future skills needs;

(iii) Promote and role model RTT's management culture of openness, innovation, involvement, teamwork, and performance;

(iv) Maintain the highest standards of personal and professional integrity and conduct role modeling RTT values and behaviours.

Miscellaneous:

(i) Be familiar with and act at all times in accordance with RTT's values, policies, procedures, standing orders and financial regulations ensuring that staff are also aware of their obligations to follow them;

(ii) Carry out other duties within the scope and spirit of the job, and in accordance with the level of the post, as required.

4. QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE, AND COMPETENCIES:

Qualifications:

Applicants must be a Postgraduate in Social Sciences, Development Studies, Business Management, or any other field of relevance to the above job profile, from a reputed institution.

Experience:

(1) Minimum Eight to ten years relevant experience with focus on project management, complex project implementation, stakeholder engagement and developing solution design;

(2) Strong project management and operations background.

Skills and Competencies:

(A) People skills:

(1) High social intelligence: Able to engage and lead teams and persuade people, able to create relationships of trust with stakeholders; generates positivity; natural team player, moves tasks to completion;

(2) Adept at cocreation: Naturally collaborative and solutions focused;

(3) Conflict negotiation: Comfortable negotiating with negotiating and diffusing conflict.

(B) Strategic Thinking and Analysis :

(1) Big picture: Able to develop a program architecture that helps meet the program goals;

(2) Critical thinker: Able to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas;

(3) Connector: Able to spot gaps, opportunities and synergies.

(C) Service Delivery:

(1) Able to apply principles of project management to make decisions where solutions are not obvious and to deliver professional services to meet customer requirements;

(2) Able to anticipate, interpret and assess client or stakeholder needs, identify trends, generate original ideas and innovative solutions.

(D) Project management:

(1) - Agile- project manager;

(2) Able to successfully manage different work streams with different delivery dates and stakeholders.

(E) Adaptability:

(1) Resilient: Able to deal well with ambiguity, uncertainty and change;

(2) Flexible: Able to adapt well to shifting priorities;

(3) Versatile: Able to juggle different and conflicting priorities within a short period.

(F) Emotional Intelligence skills:

Ability to reflect, self-aware, able to regulate, empathetic, and capable of deep listening

(G) Communication:

(1) Able to articulate and communicate well to all stakeholders (both verbally and in writing) in a manner that meets the different needs of different audiences;

(2) Sensitive to the dynamics of working in a consortium of partners;

(3) Fluent in English and Hindi - written and verbal - essential;

(4) Conversational Gujarati desirable.

5. COMPENSATION OFFERED:

Gross compensation for the position is attractive. Please note that the offer made to the selected candidate shall be commensurate with qualifications, experience and salary history.

6. LOCATION: Gandhinagar, with frequent travel across Gujarat

7. APPOINTMENT: This is a full-time position. The initial contract offered shall be till March 2023 and renewable thereafter based on performance.

8. REFERENCE: DDS-RTT

9. CONTACT INFORMATION:

Team SAMS
Strategic Alliance Management Services P Ltd.
Phone Nos.: 011- 2684 2162; 4165 3612

10. APPLICATION PROCESS:

Eligible candidates interested in the position are requested to apply by or before February 10, 2020

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