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Background and Objectives of the FCDO Transforming Education in Ethiopia (TREE) Programme

Education in Ethiopia is under stress, with limited access and retention for marginalized groups and reduced levels of learning outcomes across all year groups. This is further compounded by different crises – conflict, climate-induced shocks, and residual impacts of COVID-19, with some children out of school for most of the past 3.5 years. The Transforming Education in Ethiopia (TREE) Programme (2024 – 2029)” initiated by the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office) aims to increase access to education for girls and other marginalized groups and enhance their learning outcomes as well as improve teaching quality and learning outcomes with a focus on foundational learning.

The program will focus on three key components below:

• 1. Access to quality education: Improved quality of teaching and learning in targeted schools.
• 2. English Language: Selected schools provide better teaching and learning in English Language as a subject, and improved use of English across the curriculum.
• 3. Inclusion: Increased number of the most marginalized children, particularly girls, access education, stay in school and learn.

Scope of Work

The TREE Technical Lead will be responsible for providing broad technical assistance to the project and managing a team of technical specialists that will work closely with the Ministry of Education and Regional Education Bureaus. They will define the technical scope of the project and offer strategic direction and leadership to the project and stakeholder teams. This role spans across the education service delivery chain and involves supporting high-level negotiations, influencing, and consensus-building within all levels of the Education Ministry. The Technical Lead will engage with key stakeholders including the MoE, REBs, FCDO, Education Cluster among others to help achieve project goals, implement and institutionalize access to quality and safe education-related policies, and interventions.

Major Responsibilities

• Responsible for overall design and delivery of a high-quality, evidence-driven and relevant technical assistance approach, aligned with the priorities of the Ethiopia Ministry of Education (MoE) as well as FCDO and the World Bank managed ETOL programme & STEP.
• Leads the refinement of the programme’s technical scope in close coordination with FCDO, the MoE, and ETOL.
• Designing feasible and evidence generating interventions that will be positioned for scale-up in the larger ETOL programme.
• Ensures overall quality assurance for all technical assistance provided under the TREE TA programme.
• Supervise direct reports (technical specialists) and manage short-term consultants and technical service providers.
• Serve as the lead TREE focal point for the technical coordination with ETOL and STEP programmes (lead on technical alignment).
• Ensures continuous learning and capacity building of regional governments and national partners, supported by detailed planning and implementation.
• Ensures coordination of research, learning, and best practice sharing across targeted provinces.
• Ensure adequate technical resourcing of the TREE programme from both in-country resources and globally available resources, as well as demand-driven STTA from a pool of available candidates, to meet the specific short-term TA needs of provincial governments.

Essential Qualifications

• At least 10 years of experience providing technical assistance in Ethiopia or in similar contexts.
• In depth knowledge and understanding of Ethiopia’s education landscape, delivery chain, and major barriers in delivering inclusive and quality education through formal and non-formal government initiatives.
• Expertise in supporting program implementation at all government levels (regional, zonal, woreda, and school) through technical assistance, capacity building and basic education sector reforms and systems strengthening.
• Experience with evidence generation through research and ensuring alignment between global best practice and country level implementation.
• Expertise in the use of data to inform programming in a dynamic and ongoing fashion and recommends evidence-based course correction
• In-depth understanding of supporting the delivery of education programs with strong elements of Inclusion, including gender consideration in program delivery, disability inclusion, and religious inclusion.
• Expertise in areas of teaching and learning including curriculum material development, teacher professional development, assessment, school leadership and administration
• Strong leadership and communication skills to guide and mentor the project team members as well as foster collaboration with stakeholders.
• Problem solving capabilities – strong analytical and troubleshooting skills to resolve issues and ensure project goals are met in a timely manner.
• Ability to work effectively and collaboratively and develop constructive relationships with government at both strategic/policy and service delivery levels, including positive influencing skills.
• Extensive experience in directly delivering and coordinating large-scale Technical Assistance programs to influence education policy reform in similar contexts.
• Knowledge of local context and networks in Ethiopia ensuring that strong working relationships are maintained with academic institutions, civil society, and other development partners.
• Experience in managing high-level technical staff and quality assurance of technical outputs such as reports.
• Having fluency in any of the needed language skills (Amharic and English) is preferred.