Technical Advisor II for Early Childhood and Basic Edu.

Note:

This position is dependent upon funding as well as the donor’s approval of the proposed Education Advisor.

About CRS:

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS has been present in Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza (JWBG) since 1961 and currently supports programs in the sectors of humanitarian relief, livelihoods, civil society strengthening, and social justice promotion through its field offices in Jerusalem, Gaza, and Bethlehem. For further information about CRS, please visit: www.crs.org.

Job Summary:

CRS is seeking applicants for a Technical Advisor II for Early Childhood and Basic Education, for an anticipated USAID Basic Education Activity (BEA). The objective is to strengthen non-governmental education services for Palestinian children of KG 1 through Grade 6 that will enable them to thrive and reach their full developmental potential.  CRS will work with the private sector, non-formal, non-governmental, community-based, and civil society partners to strengthen non-governmental early childhood and primary educational opportunities through high quality early childhood education services and supplemental support structures to strengthen foundational pre-primary and primary education for children in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

As the Technical Advisor II for Early Childhood and Basic Education, you will work closely with the (D/COP) to support all aspects of the early childhood components, management of all aspects of the project related to remedial/catch up and STEAM education, including but not limited to managing technical staff, overseeing the status and progress of the different activities, coordinating amongst implementing partners, ensuring adequate and timely reporting requirements are met, and representing the project in technical level meetings.

جميع الحقوق محفوظة لموقع جوبس.

Roles and Key Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the development and implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in early childhood and basic education that effectively engage partners, donors and governments.
• Help ensure a cross-sectoral approach integrating gender, protection mainstreaming, and disaster risk reduction.
• Provide technical solutions to regional and CP teams, remotely and on-site, for strategic planning and how to best apply program design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, and M&E, ensuring high-quality implementation.
• Contribute to regional and CP efforts to pre-position CRS for growth opportunities in early childhood and basic education. Lead or contribute to the development of the technical design for large and/or complex proposals, including defining appropriate monitoring systems and indicators.
• Advise project teams on integrating donor strategies, priorities, and technical requirements into CRS’ approach.
• Contribute to capacity strengthening initiatives in early childhood and basic education programming for staff and partner through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums, conducting trainings and workshops, and mentoring and coaching to CP staff.
• Contribute to knowledge management and learning through collecting and analyzing program data, evaluating strategic projects, assisting with measuring program impact, capturing, and sharing lessons learned and best practices, and research and internal reports.
• Establish and maintain relationships with donors, peer organizations, research, and other institutions. Participate in forums in early childhood and basic education to collect and share best practices and promote CRS’ work.

Basic Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in early childhood and basic education, education or related field required.
• Minimum of five years relevant international working experience in an advisory or management role with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with minimum of three years working for programming interventions in early childhood and basic education
• Previous experience providing technical assistance and developing successful proposals for external donor funding is required.
• Demonstrated application of technical principles and concepts in early childhood and basic education. General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Experience in business development, project design and proposal development in early childhood and basic education, including technical writing.
• Experience in mentoring, coaching, facilitation and training applying adult learning principles and practices.
• Experience with program monitoring and evaluation, including applying data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.
• Experience and skills in networking and relations with donors, peer organizations, and faithbased and civil society partners. Understanding of partnership principles.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information and budget management systems, knowledge-sharing networks.

Required Languages:

Fluency in Arabic and English

Travel - Must be willing and able to travel up to 30 %, including occasional international travel, when requested. 

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Excellent relationship management skills with ability to influence and get buy-in from people not under direct supervision and to work with individuals in diverse geographical and cultural settings.
• Strong strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• Strong presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills.
• Proactive, resourceful and results oriented.

Preferred Qualifications:

• A PhD from an accredited university in Education, Early Childhood Education, or related field.
• At least 10 years working experience in the field of early childhood education, remedial education, non-formal education, foundational learning, and extra-curricular programming in the areas of extracurricular, or girls’ education programs.
• Significant prior experience with early childhood education programming, and experience working in the education sector and an understanding of the local context.
• Experience working in developing and/or humanitarian contexts.
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written.

• Demonstrated application of technical principles and concepts in early childhood and basic education. General knowledge of other related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Experience in using assessment and measurement tools and developing materials for ECE and BE.
• Experience in developing monitoring and evaluation systems for education programs is highly desired.
• Strong leadership skills and the ability to develop relations with technical staff, local counterparts, donors, and other stakeholders.
• At least four years of work experience in the MENA region

APPLICATION INSTUCTIONS:

Interested candidates with relevant education and work experience are invited to complete an application which addresses the positions requirements. In order to be considered for the position, candidates must submit both a CV and a cover letter, in English. Applications which fail to meet these requirements will not be considered. Applications must be submitted online at http://jobs.crsjwbg.org. This posting will remain open until filled, however, submission by June 1, 2023 is strongly advised.