Position: Education Specialist 

Organization: QUEST Alliance

Location: Bhubneshwar 

Apply: https:/questalliance.zohorecruit.com/careers

About the Role

Quest Alliance has been working in the secondary schools for the past few years. In 2020, we rolled out a program to build 21st century skills and STEM mindsets among adolescent girls (grade 8 and 9) from government schools in Odisha. The program has been adapted recently by the Govt. as a state led model and scaled to 258 schools across 30 districts of the state. It is further expected to be scaled to 4,000 schools in phases. Currently the programme is shifting towards a teacher led model of operations with scope of building systems and processes in schools, districts and state level.

The Education Specialist will be part of the state team with a mission to build a State Led Model in the state of Odisha by leading the areas of technical assistance to the state, knowledge management and strategic representation and partnership with the Govt. The Education Specialist will lead design and capacity building programmes for teachers, leadership training for head teachers and officials at districts and state level. The role will also lead efforts to develop content for delivery with students and ensure the implementation of curriculum plans for the year. The role has scope to review the state curriculum, find areas of integration of the curriculum developed by Quest.

Role Description

1. Capacity building of Facilitators, teachers and govt. stakeholders

Holding the vision of building a state led mode, plan and execute the capacity building model for Odisha as a state. Organise and facilitate training/workshops for the facilitators who are in charge of mentoring and demonstrating the programme for the teachers to be able to implement it. Lead the state content task force by ensuring development and adherence of the state curriculum implementation plan. Organise and facilitate trainings/workshops for the teachers for them to be able to delivery session on the areas of self, gender, career and computational thinking Develop an educational leadership model for different stakeholders – state, district, schools – blended learning approach.

Developing a strategy for building a pool of master trainers in the state education department who will take the program approach forward. Facilitate their capacity building process.

Facilitate scaling up the 21st century teacher capacity building course and installing it within the teacher capacity building plan of the state of Odisha. Build a strategy for e-tutors which is led by both Quest and the state education department of Odisha

Build and facilitate tech-enabled support systems for teachers – chatbots, online courses etc.

2. Content Design and iteration

The program is looking to work with grades VIII to X. The key thematic areas are: lifeskills, gender, digital literacy, coding (basic and advanced levels), career development

Lead the process of content review and development process for the teacher led model of implementation

Doing content research and identifying other organisations we can partner with Coordinating the content development process by organising the different workshops with the teachers and facilitators

Map the existing curriculum developed by QUEST Alliance with National Education Policy and support in developing plan for curriculum integration in the new SCF for Odisha

3. Building the state supported Teacher Led Model

Support building the state supported teacher led model for the state of Odisha by building a capacity building and content integration strategy which is institutionalised in the system.

Provide technical input to partner facilitators and CRPs on instructional design. STEM content, and pedagogy support Design flow for school based events or virtual events – career days, hackathons, parent teacher meets, teacher orientations, role model interactions and learning days. Make virtual visits to students learning calls, PTMs and events to understand the delivery of the sessions. Hand Holding the district facilitators in being able to demonstrate the curriculum to the teachers and ensuring its implementation Once field operations starts, make visit to schools and community to get feedback on the content and give feedback on its delivery

Required skills and Experience:

Minimum 5-7 years of work experience in implementing blended learning content for school related projects Hands-on experience with working on coding/ computational skills/ STEM and life and career skills for school students Prior experience in content development and implementation

Prior experience of having worked in state led scale up models while having a perspective on the content thematics (coding computational skills/ STEM and life and career skills) of the program

Prior experience of facilitating training and workshops for the govt. Teachers and officials at districtstate level

Willingness to learn and influence prevalent practices in education ecosystem Deep understanding of the National Education Policy and State Curriculum Framework

Relevant education qualifications for handling pedagogy. STEM, and life skills content Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills in English and Odia (preferred) Excellent IT skills Willingness to travel extensively Ability to train, build capacity of, and manage relationships with partner NGOs Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively with other teams