View Vacancy – GIRL Technical Lead, Rwanda, East and Central Africa (04/24 KG)

The British High Commission in Kigali (BHC) is recruiting an Education Officer to sit within the Human Development and Resilience Team (HDRT) and work primarily on the Girls in Rwanda Learn (GIRL) bilateral education programme. GIRL is a flexible and catalytic programme that will test then scale cost-effective and innovative interventions to support marginalised girls to return to school, stay in school and learn. The total value of GIRL programme is up to £60m between 2023-2030, and it has components: (1) improving learning outcomes in P1-P3 English and Maths, (2) supporting children that are at risk of drop out, (3) supporting children that are out of school, (4) supporting children with disabilities and (5) a cross-cutting technical assistance and advocacy component.

The post-holder will be responsible for technical oversight of the GIRL programme, ensuring internal programme coherency, promoting a culture of evidence and learning, programme compliance with a focus safeguarding and identifying and monitoring risks. In addition, the post-holder will be responsible for the programme’s alignment with other development partners and technical engagement in the sector on programme-related issues such as foundational learning, education inclusion and evidence dissemination. The post-holder will be based in the BHC, but will work closely with programme partners to provide join-up and technical expertise across the programme components. The post-holder will be expected to promote visibility of the UK’s contribution to Rwanda’s education sector, and advance UK objectives on gender equality, disability, and inclusion.

The post-holder will work closely with BHC’s Education Adviser and the Programme Manager who are the GIRL Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) and Programme Responsible Owner (PRO) respectively. The SRO provides overall leadership, strategic oversight and direction of the programme, and is responsible for all programme decisions based on information provided by delivery partners and the post-holder. In addition to the SRO role, BHC’s Education Adviser leads on the broader education portfolio in Rwanda (including Centrally Managed Programmes), policy influencing and high-level relationships with GoR and DPs.

Roles and responsibilities

• Technical oversight of GIRL: Develop a detailed understanding of the operational and technical delivery of GIRL components and ensure interventions across partners align closely with the overall programme objectives and log frame. Contribute to programme reporting by leading the Annual Review process, reviewing quarterly/annual reports submitted by partners, and providing recommendations to the SRO. Stay abreast of BHC’s wider strategic objectives and identify ways to strengthen alignment with priorities on e.g., Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) and localisation (working with local CSOs and NGOs). Conduct regular field visit to monitor programme implementation and identify programmatic challenges and opportunities. Work with UNICEF to lead the biannual Education Inclusion Symposium, showcasing lessons learnt from GIRL and facilitating learning and collaboration with other partners. Report on GIRL progress/lessons learnt as relevant, including at the Steering Committee for Foundational Learning and BHC Technical Dialogue meetings. Stay abreast of new international/local evidence and engage with the Education Cadre to ensure programme delivery is informed by the latest evidence of best practice. Identify evidence gaps and priority areas for further research.

• Internal programme coherency: Ensure a coherent delivery approach between the programme delivery partners. Draw out internal learning from across programme components/partners and communicate this at GIRL Steering Committee meetings to enhance the effectiveness of the programme. The post-holder will be expected to join technical meeting with programme delivery partners, ensure greater join-up and alignment between programme components/partners, and ensure efficient communication flows between partners.

• Sector engagement: Technical engagement with the sector by representing FCDO/GIRL at technical working group meetings (including but not limited to teacher development and management, curriculum and textbooks, quality assurance and assessment, and inclusive education). Actively engage with key GoR technical leads and other programme teams (e.g., Tunoze Gusoma, Zero-out-of-school Children) to ensure alignment and complementarity with other relevant initiatives, given the dense sector context in primary education and several new programmes with related objectives. Stay abreast of developments in the sector and proactively identify opportunities for GIRL to influence sector reform, policy, GoR and other development partners’ programmes.

We are looking for someone with:

• Education Systems: Understanding of the education systems strengthening evidence base and approaches to designing education investments and influencing strategies to leverage systemic reform to improve access and learning outcomes in a variety of country contexts.

• Education, Equity, and Inclusion: Strong technical understanding of approaches to developing and implementing education interventions at national level to improve access and learning at scale for the most marginalised children, particularly girls and children with disability. Experience of design or delivery of programmes sensitive to safeguarding risks.

• Evidence, Research, and Innovation: Experience of using evidence and learning from programme and project monitoring and evaluation to influence education policy and systems.

• Communicating and Influencing: Ability to communicate with others in a clear, honest and enthusiastic way in order to build trust, and explain complex issues in a way that is easy to understand.

• Working together: Ability to actively build and maintain a network of colleagues and contacts to achieve progress on shared objectives.