Global Technical Lead – Inclusive Education

Sightsavers is looking for a Global Technical Lead – Inclusive Education, to provide technical leadership in inclusive education within our programmes.

Salary: £55,250.00 – 65,000.00

Location: UK remote

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full-time at 35 hours per week, With potential for flexibility around hours worked.

About the role

Sightsavers’ work in the field of education is driven by the principle of inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all. We are looking for a Global Technical Lead – Inclusive Education to provide technical leadership and expertise in inclusive education to guide the development and delivery of specific initiatives and programmes.

As the Global Technical Lead for Inclusive Education, you will support Sightsavers to promote inclusive education for children, youth, and adults with disabilities in education systems in West Africa, East, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA), and South Asia. Working across multiple countries, you will ensure that disability inclusion is at the centre of conceptualisation, design and implementation of Sightsavers’ projects.

Strong communication skills in English and French are essential for this role, as is the availability to travel 12-16 weeks a year, nationally and internationally.

Principal accountabilities will include:

To provide technical leadership and expertise in inclusive education at the programmatic level
To strengthen the global programme portfolio in inclusive education through leading strategic and technical inputs in proposal development for funding opportunities.
To pioneer new strategic initiatives and innovative approaches in inclusive education to improve and enhance the quality of Sightsavers’ work, especially in cross-cutting priority areas like climate action, gender equity and the use of data and evidence.
To contribute to the research, innovation, policy, advocacy and communications agendas through close collaboration with interdepartmental teams and key external stakeholders.
To undertake senior level representation of Sightsavers as an expert in inclusive education at national, regional and international professional and sector-specific networks, platforms, conferences and meetings.

This is an ideal opportunity to build on your existing expertise in leading and developing programmes in inclusive education in lower income countries. We are looking for a skilled communicator with the ability to build strong working relationships across different departments and work collaboratively as a member of our cross-functional teams. To succeed in this role, you will need:

A Postgraduate qualification (minimum Master’s) or equivalent experience in a relevant field, e.g. education, special needs education; disability, international development
Business to fluent French language skills
A proven record of leading, developing and implementing programmes in inclusive education in lower income countries.
Experience of working with national governments and international institutions such as Global Partnership for Education, UN agencies, bilateral agencies as well as non-state actors to contribute to education system transformation.
Knowledge of current developments, issues and best practice in inclusive education to effectively address the barriers to education for children with disabilities
Able to travel for up to 12-16 weeks a year (regional and international).

This is a varied role, please read the full job descriptionfor further details

Benefits

Sightsavers offers some fantastic benefits. Our comprehensive benefits package includes generous annual leave allowance, pension, season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme, discounted gym memberships and wellness discounts. If you choose to work in or are visiting our collaborative, modern office space, you will find it an easy 20-minute train journey from Brighton or 45 minutes from London.

To apply for this exciting opportunity, please complete an application via our recruitment portal.

We anticipate that the evaluation process will include a two-stage interview.

As an equal opportunity employer, we actively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Sightsavers is a Disability Confident Leader and qualified people with a disability are particularly encouraged to apply.

Sightsavers is an employer that does not tolerate any form of harassment and has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse. All potential candidates will be subjected to rigorous background checks and controls.

In line with its commitment to safe programming and recruitment, Sightsavers participates in the inter-agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (MDS) administered by the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response. Through collaboration with other MDS members, Sightsavers aims to ensure that there are no sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment issues relating to potential new hires and that we can respond systematically to checks from fellow MDS members. This ensures our work is accountable, delivered to a high standard and supports safeguarding across the development and humanitarian fields.