The role of Manager II, Education involves providing strategic technical leadership and oversight for ChildFund Kenya's education portfolio, with a strong emphasis on Early Childhood Development (ECD). The Manager is responsible for aligning the program with global and national strategic frameworks, ensuring high-quality implementation, driving resource mobilization, and building key partnerships.
Required Experience and Education
- Master’s degree in education, Early Childhood Development, Social Sciences, Development Studies, or related field.
- Minimum 7 years of progressive experience in education programming within an international NGO or development agency.
- Proven track record in resource mobilization, proposal development, and donor relationship management.
- Experience managing multi-sectoral education projects, including ECD, literacy, teacher training, and child protection.
Primary Responsibilities
Program Strategy, Design & Implementation
- Lead the development of the ChildFund Country education strategy aligned with ChildFund’s global and country strategic plan priorities and other relevant country, regional and global education strategies, policies and frameworks.
- Contribute and participate in the development and review of the country strategic plan and related country level strategies, policies, and frameworks.
- Lead integration of ECD strategies across all education interventions, ensuring compliance with national and global standards.
- Lead the design and implementation of evidence-based interventions for ECD, foundational learning, teacher training, social-emotional learning, digital literacy, and child protection projects and programs.
- Offer technical guidance to implementing partners (IPs) and field teams on all levels of the education portfolio’s programming standards and best practices.
- Collaborate with the International Office ECD Advisor to strengthen technical guidance, quality standards and reach and impact measures in ECD programming.
- Provide technical leadership in the development of tools, guidelines, and training materials for ECD, nurturing care, foundational learning, social-emotional learning, digital literacy, online safety, and child protection education programming.
- Integrate inclusive education, ECD and nurturing care approaches, addressing gender equity and the needs of children with disabilities.
- Develop high-quality proposals and concept notes for donor funding in collaboration with the Business Development team.
- Support the generation of education programming content for internal and external communications through writing briefs, blogs, and articles.
Technical Support & Oversight of Local Partners
- Provide ongoing technical assistance and capacity building to implementing partners, and other technical partners at county and national level.
- Support partners in all education programs’ related planning, budgeting, implementation, and reporting to ensure quality and compliance.
- Conduct regular field visits and technical reviews to monitor progress, identify challenges, and recommend corrective actions.
- Facilitate learning and knowledge exchange among partners to promote innovation and best practices in all education programming, including ECD and nurturing care.
- Provide leadership in rolling-out of ChildFund’s global education strategy and nurturing care framework through technical guidance to country office and implementation partner technical staff.
- Ensure integration of safeguarding principles and Nurturing Care Framework across all education initiatives.
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL)
- Collaborate with the MEAL team to develop and apply robust frameworks for tracking education program outputs, outcomes, and impact.
- Support partners in data collection, analysis, and reporting, ensuring alignment with donor and organizational standards.
- Lead documentation of success stories, lessons learned, and evidence-based practices and facilitate internal and external learning and knowledge-sharing.
- Support research and evaluation activities to strengthen evidence-based programming.
- Ensure timely and high-quality reporting to donors, government, and ChildFund global offices.
Business Development & Grant Management
- Drive resource mobilization efforts for education programs, ensuring a diversified and sustainable grant portfolio in ECD, Nurturing care and safe-online programs.
- Identify funding opportunities and lead proposal development for education sector initiatives.
- Build and maintain relationships with donors, foundations, and development partners and lead negotiations and discussions for securing funding for education initiatives.
- Strengthen management of relationships and engagement with existing ECD and other education sector donors.
- Provide technical leadership and strategic direction in fostering donor relationships with support from the IO-level ECD Advisor.
- Ensure proactive communication and strong partnership with ECD-focused donors to secure funding and sustain program growth.
- Provide technical leadership in pre-positioning, capture planning, and proposal development for education grants.
- Support budget development, expenditure tracking, and financial reporting in collaboration with finance teams.
- Oversee education related grant implementation, ensuring timely delivery of results, financial accountability, and donor compliance.
- Monitor grant performance, budgets, and timelines to ensure successful delivery and reporting.
- Provide technical support to partners in managing education grants effectively.
Representation & Advocacy
- Represent ChildFund Kenya in national and regional technical working groups, CSO coalitions, and policy forums related to education, ECD, Child Protection and safe online.
- Foster strategic partnerships with government agencies, NGOs, research institutions, and private sector actors to advance education goals.
- Advocate for inclusive and sustainable education policies and practices at county and national levels.
- Build strategic partnerships with government agencies, private sector actors, and civil society organizations to enhance education program reach and sustainability.
Team Leadership & Capacity Building
- Supervise and mentor education sector program staff, fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and innovation.
- Organize and facilitate training workshops, webinars and mentorship for staff and partners on education-related topics.
- Promote cross-functional collaboration within ChildFund Kenya to integrate education into broader child protection and development programming.
- Support caregiver engagement and community advocacy for improved education outcomes.
Safeguarding
- Remain alert and responsive to any safeguarding risks; acquire relevant knowledge and skills to enable understanding and application of the safeguarding policy and procedures.
- Promote strong safeguarding practices and perform duty and responsibility to safeguard.
- Report violations, and promote appropriate behavior.
- Conduct self in a manner consistent with the organization’s policies and values.
