Title: Early Childhood Education (ECE) Technical Lead

The ECE Technical Lead will ensure quality delivery of the program, accountable for the budget management, and be able to engage the partners (capacity building) and monitor the progress. The candidate will report directly 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 other in-country priorities and ensure the program is compliant with USAID and ChildFund Ethiopia regulations.

DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead the design and implementation of the Early Childhood Education project.
• Establish connection and liaise with relevant national and local level government, civil society, and community stakeholders to support, strengthen, and develop ECE policy, strategy, guidelines, curriculum and structure analysis.
• Liaise with MOE and other relevant government stakeholders at national and local level for systems strengthening, advocacy and policy efforts.
• Identifying challenges and opportunities to support the successful transition of children from ECE to primary school and provide technical support to government in the design and implementation of transition approaches.
• Support with the M&E process and use M&E data to assess and address potential challenges and opportunities within the ECE strategy ongoingly.
• Build capacity of project staff, implementing partners, and stakeholders at relevant Ministries on Early Childhood Development and Education.
• Present and represent the Early Childhood Education activity, its components, data, and lessons learned to national networks, working groups, and coalitions, and to external stakeholders, including donor, government stakeholders, partners, community stakeholders.
• Maintain communication, share lessons learned and best practices from the projects with relevant members of ChildFund Country Office, ChildFund International Office, and partners.

Child Safeguarding

Remain alert and responsive to any child safeguarding risks, acquire relevant knowledge and skills which will enable you to promote strong safeguarding practices, understand the child safeguarding policy and procedures, and conduct yourself in a manner consistent with the Child Safeguarding Policy

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.

Childfund Division: Global Operations

ChildFund Department: Program Delivery Support

Div/Dept: Program and Sponsorship

Location: Country Office

Reporting Relationship: Program & Sponsorship Director

Job Grade: 10

 Education

• A Bachelor’s degree required.
• Master’s degree in ECE, Education, Social Sciences, or in a closely related field is preferred.

Experience

• Minimum of 8 years relevant experience in progressively responsible roles supporting and implementing ECD or related initiatives, preferably in Ethiopia.
• Experienced on areas of Social and Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC)’ and on the responsibilities we can include ‘support for the development of SBCC and Advocacy strategy’
• Familiarity with the Ethiopia systems, policies, and regulations pertinent to ECD and ECE highly preferred.
• Demonstrated technical competencies in program design, including M&E frameworks, implementation, and evaluation.
• Demonstrated experience working with children experiencing deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability and their families.
• Demonstrated experience in engaging relevant stakeholders with policy development or analysis, with particular focus on early learning and responsive parenting programming.
• Demonstrated experience in developing play-based tools for the development of emergent literacy, numeracy and social emotional skills in preschool and community based early childhood settings, and home based (parenting) settings.
• Proven ability in participatory training and capacity building for program design, delivery and assessment.
• Proven ability to provide technical assistance, guidance and coaching to implementing staff and partners.
• Demonstrated experience in representing, and networking with USG representatives, multilateral agencies, and institutions focused on child development programming.
• Organized, detail oriented, team player, and results oriented individual.
• Excellent presentation, public speaking, and interpersonal skills.
• Strong computer skills, with familiarity in using Microsoft Office suite applications (particularly Word and PowerPoint)