Job description

About TaRL (Teaching at the Right Level)

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa is a high-profile initiative originally developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and the Indian Education NGO Pratham to promote evidence-informed education programming in Africa. TaRL Africa, now headquartered in Kenya, works to improve basic reading and arithmetic skills of children on the African continent through the TaRL approach. We aim to reach 3 million children in the next five years. Key countries of operation include Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Zambia where we work on contextualizing the TaRL approach.

Working Relationships in the organization

Internal: (Internal units): Interacts with the TaRL Africa central team, SMT, Country Managers, Heads of Departments, PRATHAM, and JPAL.

External: (External stakeholders): Interacts with the national governments, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, donors, specialists/consultants and other stakeholders.

About the Role | Director- Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation

The role is envisioned to have high-level oversight of the monitoring, measurement, and review functions and more hands-on involvement in a number of research projects. To be successful, the MLE Director will need to work closely with the team to understand the program details.

Key Responsibilities

Overall leadership

• Providing leadership for and strategic guidance to TaRL Africa MLE activities.
• Developing, updating and overseeing delivery of an MLE framework and learning agenda.
• Providing technical leadership to capture and communicate program results for program review and improvement.
• Leading efforts and work with other functional leads to ensure lessons and best practices are incorporated into ongoing interventions and innovative approaches.
• Representing TaRL Africa on all matters relating to MLE across platforms and stakeholders.
• Contributing to MLE ecosystem by drafting and sharing TaRL Africa learnings and best practices externally.
• Contributing to TaRL Africa strategic planning and decision making as a member of the SMT.
• Supporting capacity building of TaRL partners in measurement, evaluation and learning

Team leadership

• Building and lead the MLE team at central and country level.
• Directly managing at least 4 Manager level staff, and provide indirect oversight for management of rest of central and country-level MLE team.
• Overseeing and contributing to capacity building and professional development of MLE team members

Leadership of the Monitoring and Measurement Function

• Ensure quality execution of the MM strategy.
• Ensure high-quality, timely, valid, and verifiable data collection within and across TaRL country programs.
• Guide technical assistance efforts to ensure within program data is used for decision-making by program partners.
• Oversee efforts to ensure improved MM systems are built into government systems and NGO partners over time.

Leadership of Research and Evaluation

• Develop and update a learning agenda to answer key questions with appropriate methods such as pilots, qualitative research and impact evaluations in collaboration with other functional areas.
• Ensuring guidelines for research standards and ethics are in place and upheld.
• Contributing to and in some cases lead the design of process monitoring, qualitative research studies and rigorous impact evaluations
• Crafting & overseeing Calls for Proposals for research studies that are outsourced.
• Working with the procurement team to recruit service providers and to oversee the management of service providers (academics, survey firms etc) on outsourced research projects.

Fundraising, donor engagement and budget management

• Leading fundraising, donor engagement and management (including relationship management and reporting) for research and MLE projects/ activities as necessary.
• Ensuring MLE projects are adequately budgeted and finances for the MLE function are managed well.

Does this sound like you?

Critical Requirements for the role (Must Haves)

• Master’s degree in economics, public policy, statistics, education or other relevant quantitative field.
• 10 years work experience OR PhD in relevant field plus 8 years work experience.
• Demonstrated ability to understand and communicate findings from rigorous quantitative research.
• Demonstrated knowledge and familiarity with using statistical software like Stata, Excel, or R and qualitative tools such as Nvivo.
• Proven leadership and management track record in leading a diverse team across work functions and countries.
• Experience in fundraising and writing fundraising proposals.
• Outstanding written and oral communication skills in English.

Preferred Requirements (Nice to Haves)

• Proven ability to handle multiple diverse assignments at one time, successfully complete assigned tasks and meet deadlines while conducting high-quality work.
• Excellent writing skills to deliver high-quality deliverables to cross country program teams and donors.
• PhD degree in economics, public policy, statistics, education or other relevant quantitative field.
• Willingness to travel extensively and flexibly on the Africa continent and beyond.
• Communication skills in French.

Candidate Attributes (Culture fit)

• Aligned to the Vision and Mission of the organization.
• Must have an entrepreneurial mindset and be ready to get their hands dirty