ROLE PURPOSE:
The Education Technical Advisor is a critical position for Save the Children in Lebanon and will play the lead role in ensuring the design, implementation and monitoring of high-quality education programmes for tens of thousands of children across the country.
The Education Technical Advisor provides technical leadership to all our work in the education sector, with responsibility for developing clear strategic and operational plans, identifying fundraising needs and leading the development of technical proposals, forging strong partnerships with Government, UN, NGO and local civil society counterparts, as well as providing technical support to our education teams across three different field locations in Lebanon. The Education Technical Advisor directly line manages and works collaboratively with the Education Specialist.
CHILD SAFEGUARDING:
Level 3 - the role holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.
SCOPE OF ROLE:
Reports to: Director of Programme Development and Quality (DPDQ)
Dimensions: Save the Children Lebanon Country Office currently has a large portfolio of education work across the country, with a strong pipeline of future funding and opportunities to further expand.
Number of direct reports: One Education Specialist
KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:
Strategic Planning and Leadership:
- Provide overall strategic leadership to Save the Children’s work in the education sector in Lebanon.
- Lead the development and rollout of the education strategy for Save the Children in Lebanon, covering emergency response and nexus education programming, including cross cutting issues related to education.
- Provide education technical input to the development of country annual plans, area plans, response and emergency preparedness plans, sector strategies and other planning documents.
- Maintain a clear overview of programme progress across the education portfolio to be shared with senior managers.
- Ensure that our education programme design benefits from integration with other sectors where possible, and vice versa.
Programme Quality and Standards:
- Provide technical expertise, quality assurance and guidance for Save the Children’s education programmes, ensuring they are of high quality with reliable data and outcomes.
- Supervise the development of a technical capacity building plan for education staff in Save the Children and local partners in Lebanon, working with Education Specialist and field teams to prioritise training needs and resource these appropriately.
- Develop and maintain central database of tools, manuals and guidance to support the development of new programming and improve programme quality in education.
- Supervise and support the development of technical tools, guidance and documentation as required.
- Oversee knowledge sharing across teams, and ensure that monitoring and evaluation results are understood and used to improve programmes.
- Promote and utilize SCI’s Common Approaches, ensuring adaptation to context.
- Ensure documentation of case studies, best practices and lessons learned and dissemination of these both internally and externally working with the Advocacy, Campaigns, Communications and Media (ACCM) and Research, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) teams.
Programme Development and Resource Mobilisation:
- Provide active leadership in Save the Children’s relationships with key donors and stakeholders for the education sector.
- Ensure clear identification of fundraising needs and priorities in the education sector.
- Identify and assess appropriateness of fundraising opportunities.
- Lead technical development of high-quality concept notes and proposals for education work.
- Develop set of “off the shelf” concept notes for new or pilot activities.
- Lead donor and partner mapping for the education sector.
Support to Programme Implementation:
- Line manage project components aimed at technical support to third parties at the national level (e.g. Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE), UN partners, etc).
- Support the development of monitoring, information management, and reporting systems that provide information for reporting and programme improvement (in conjunction with Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) and field staff).
- Support high quality reporting by field staff through timely review and guidance.
- Screen technical field manager candidates (and others as appropriate) and support recruitment as needed.
- Assess (in conjunction with line management) and support technical work of Education and Child Protection Programme Managers, Education Project Managers, and Education Coordinators across field offices and support their professional development.
- Promote and facilitate synergies with other thematic programmes, including Child Protection, Child Rights Governance, Livelihoods, WASH and Shelter.
- As needed, lead in technical inputs to procurement of programme goods or services involving multiple locations, large-scale use of resources, and/or a high level of risk to the agency to ensure programme relevance, quality, adherence to technical guidelines, and efficient use of resources.
- Conduct regular field monitoring of activities with Education Specialist.
Partnerships:
- Ensure timely support to Partnerships Manager on technical identification, selection, and adequate assessment of education strategic & implementing partners.
- Lead the identification of strategic partners (local or international) for potential consortia projects.
- Ensure appropriate, relevant, and timely provision of technical capacity on education as necessary and through mobilization and dissemination of internal and external capacity building opportunities and sharing of all relevant materials/documents, etc.
- Promote joint program design for the advancement of mutual strategic priorities when relevant.
- Commit to joint regular monitoring of implementation progress and achievement towards results, and feeding into programmatic adaptations.
- Maintain strong coordinated working relationships with partners, including relevant government stakeholders.
- Promote Save the Children policies and practice with respect to education, child safeguarding, code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures with implementing partners
- Improve/strengthen coordination and technical support to local partners including National NGOs, CSOs, and Governmental bodies on education.
Advocacy and Representation:
- Lead external representation of Save the Children’s education work in Lebanon.
- Represent Save the Children in technical area to government and other agencies.
- Represent Save the Children in Education Sector Working Group and Core Group meetings, related task teams and other sector coordination forums in Lebanon.
- Provide technical and strategic support to the Lebanon Education Sector coordination team and serve as backstop for the Education Sector co-lead in case of absence of SCI Sector Coordinator.
- Contribute to development of advocacy messages and materials in education, including for the Education Sector’s Advocacy Task Team.
- Serve as technical link with Save the Children Members, regional office, and Education Global Initiative.
- Represent Save the Children on other national/international technical networks as requested.
General:
- Comply with Save the Children policies and practice with respect to child protection, code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Master’s degree in education, development or other relevant social science degree.
- Fluency in written and spoken English and Arabic.
EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS:
Essential
- A minimum of 5 years in a technical leadership role in education for an NGO, UN agency or other development or humanitarian organisation.
- Previous programme management experience in an NGO or other humanitarian environment, including experience directing and implementing programs for children in both emergency and development contexts.
- Proven experience leading education in emergencies (EiE) programming and in participating in emergency coordination forums (education cluster, education working groups, etc.)
- Familiarity with key international standards for humanitarian work and education in emergencies (e.g. INEE, SPHERE, HAP principles, etc.).
- Proven experience raising funds and developing proposals for education programmes in excess of $1million.
- Strong writing skills, including experience in writing funding proposals and donor reports.
- Excellent understanding of relevant education monitoring and evaluation tools, processes and methodologies.
- Proven representation, influencing and advocacy skills.
- Good interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate and negotiate clearly and effectively at all levels, taking into account cultural and language difficulties.
- Highly developed cultural awareness and ability to work well in an international environment with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
- Ability to analyse information, evaluate options and to think and plan strategically.
- Knowledge of key areas of programme operations, logistics and grant management relevant to delivering quality education programming.
- Ability and willingness to change work practices and hours, and work with incoming teams in the event of major emergencies.
- Commitment to and understanding of Save the Children’s aims, values and principles including rights-based approaches.
Desirable
- Fluency in written and spoken Arabic.
- Previous work experience in Lebanon or other areas in the Middle East.
- Technical knowledge and experience in community-based education programming.
- Previous work experience in response to the Syrian crisis.
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 the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and 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.
FRAUD PREVENTION:
The role holder is expected to uphold high standards of integrity and transparency, and will have access to financial, operational, or programmatic resources that require strict compliance with SCI’s Anti-Fraud and Corruption Policy. This includes responsibility for preventing, identifying, and reporting any suspected fraud, corruption, or misuse of resources in the course of their work.
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 SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.
