Save the Children is seeking an Early Childhood Education (ECE) Senior Technical Advisor for an anticipated five-year USAID-funded Early Childhood Education activity in Ethiopia. The program focuses on increasing the effectiveness of the early childhood education system. 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, woreda, Kebele and Household levels.

 The ECE Technical Senior Advisor reports to the Chief of Party and will provide technical leadership and have responsibility for all activities associated with strengthening systems and practices related to early childhood Education, positive parenting and social inclusion in Ethiopia.

This position is contingent upon donor approval and funding. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Early Childhood Education Analysis and Strategy  

• Support in national and local level ECE policy, strategy, guidelines, curriculum and structure analysis and use evidence to contribute to systems strengthening, advocacy and policy engagement efforts
• Carry out evidence drive advocacy and policy engagement in collaboration with key stakeholders including bilateral partners such as   USAID, FCDO UNICEF and World Bank and civil society partners
• 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 design and implementation of the Early Childhood Education project.
• Lead the development of   Early Childhood Education project sstrategy and ensure Early Childhood Education Analysis recommendations are integrated into project plans.
• Update the project Early Childhood Education Strategy annually alongside the project work plan using formal and informal feedback.
• Coordinate with project staff, including managers and technical specialists, to ensure the implementation of the Early Childhood Education Strategy in project activities.

Project Implementation  

• Support SCI field offices, MOE, Regional education Bureaus and district education offices in ECE systems analysis and strengthening activities
• 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 GoE 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.
• Design and conduct Early Childhood Education components of assessments or standalone Early Childhood Education assessments as appropriate, ensuring results are used to adapt project implementation and broad system level improvements.
• Support field offices advising and ensuring play-based learning approaches are implemented and documented

Coordination & Capacity Building  

• Build capacity of project, partner and Government of Ethiopia staff in Early Childhood Education principles, and play based methods and techniques.
• Ensure alignment with Save the Children ECE priorities and strategies and complementarity between existing and planned programs.
• Represent Early Childhood Education 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 GoE ECE capacity building plans and curriculum implementation activities

A.KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY: 

SKILLS AND BEHAVIOURS (our Values in Practice)

Accountability:

§  Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values

§  Holds suppliers accountable to deliver on their responsibilities

Ambition:

§  Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and takes responsibility for their own personal development

§  Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others

§  Future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale

Collaboration:

§  Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to; builds and maintains effective relationships with colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters

§  Values diversity and different people’s perspectives, able to work cross-culturally.

Creativity:

§  Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions

§  Cuts away bureaucracy and encourages an entrepreneurial approach

Integrity:

§  Honest, encourages openness and transparency, builds trust and confidence

§  Displays consistent excellent judgement

KEY COMPETENCIES

Technical competencies:

·      Ensures linkages across portfolio ensuring quality and coherence of MEAL systems and evidence gathering

·      Manages resources and capacities to develop and maintain quality MEAL systems

·      Facilitates strategic alignment of data to global priorities

Generic Competencies

·      Child Rights: Promotes an enabling environment for participation, and accountability to children

·      Be the Innovator: Promotes innovation to find new and better approaches to driving progress for children

Deliver Results at Scale: Promotes a clear focus on impact in a project and programme design, management, and oversight

Generic Competencies

• Being the Voice of Children: Promotes evidence-based policy and public engagement that includes the voices of children and their communities

• Advancing Equality & Inclusion: Displays a commitment to ensuring everything we do considers the most deprived and marginalized children and adolescent
• Building & Strengthening Partnerships: Promotes working with diverse partners as critical to delivery

Child Rights: Promotes the rights of children in own work and in work with colleagues and peerS,

Additional job responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Equal Opportunities

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI’s global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Gender Equality Policies, supported by relevant procedures.

Child Safeguarding:

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

Safeguarding our Staff:

The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy.

Health and Safety

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SC Health and Safety policies and procedures.

We offer a competitive package in the context of the sector. The duty station of the position holder will be in Addis Ababa This role is offered on the basis of national terms and conditions only.

The Organization
We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realize the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:
• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated

We know that great people make a great organization, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive environment where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.

 Job Requirements

Experience and Skills:

• A Bachelor’s degree required.
• Master’s degree in ECE, Education, Social Sciences, or in a closely related field is required. is preferred.
• Minimum of ten (10) years’ experience and demonstrated practical skills in the NGO sector, focusing on ECE, whether in Ethiopia or another African country is preferred
• Experience in engaging at policy level with policy development or analysis, at regional or Federal level, with particular focus on ECE and positive parenting programming, preferably in Ethiopia is highly desired;
• Experience in emergent literacy, numeracy and social emotional learning promotion in pre-school settings is highly desired
• Excellent knowledge of holistic child development and understanding of global evidence, best practices, and gaps around early childhood education interventions;
• Experience in integrating and mainstreaming disability and inclusion  in ECE programming in low-resource settings.
• Demonstrated experience working with children experiencing deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability and their families, and
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and Amharic are highly desirable.
• Experience in working with partners, with particular focus on capacity building and system strengthening
• Experience in research and evaluation related to ECE thematic area
• Competence in use of various computer software
• Qualified local candidates are strongly encouraged to apply