Central Square Foundation Hiring for Program Manager – Assessments at Rānchī Full Time

IPEL Brief and Position Summary

The IPEL (India Partnership for Early Learning) project, supported by USAID, is a consortium of four organizations (CARE India, Room to Read, KPMG and CSF), each bringing its own expertise to achieve the target stated in NEP 2020 (ensuring that all learners in Grade 3 achieve FLN by 2025). The IPEL team at CSF supports the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to design and implement their state FLN missions as part of the national NIPUN Bharat Mission. We act as catalysts to support the initiatives, schemes and programmes of the state governments towards ensuring all children achieve foundational literacy and numeracy skills by Grade 3 so that they make the successful shift from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’.

The Assessment function nested under the IPEL team provides technical and strategic support for assessment and evaluation of student learning outcomes for the state of Jharkhand. This includes supporting the state with tools and methodology for conducting student assessment for early grade/foundational skills (in Literacy and Numeracy) as part of FLN programs (both large scale / system level assessments and school based assessments such as formative and summative).

The Program Manager will be responsible for working with state government stakeholders, IPEL state lead, IPEL state team and IPEL central PMU to provide specialized support pertaining to development, implementation and analysis of assessment and evaluation of student’s learning outcomes. The role will be based out of Ranchi and will report to the Senior Program Manager in Delhi.

This is a 1 year contractual position extendable based on project needs.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to

• Support the state in setting up assessment architecture for FLN (at school level for formative and summative assessments, at system level for spot-tests and achievement surveys)
• Ensure the quality of data collected by designing proper mechanism for monitoring and ensuring the data usage – especially for FLN monitoring as a part of monitoring system and project evaluation
• Supporting state by providing advisory and troubleshooting support in all aspects of roll out.
• Provide support for developing training materials for dissemination workshops (post assessment) to be organized at the State/UT/district levels.
• Establish and manage relationships with stakeholders to strengthen program implementation across large scale assessments
• Ensure quality and rigor of assessments (items, instruments and methodology), ensuring quality standards. Conduct assessment quality checks through rigorous item review and finalization.

Required Qualifications, Experience, Skills

• Bachelor’s/Master’s degree (preferred) or equivalent degree, with specialization in Education, Student Assessment & Measurement, Data
• 2 to 6 years of experience working with large-scale assessment programs or large-scale applications (data sets, programs, and/or applications) of similar complexity, ideally with government institutions (State/Central). Experience with formal assessment processes is required.
• Knowledge of competency based framework, assessment methodologies, tools for collecting data, analyze data (such as STATA, R, CONQUEST, SPSS, etc.),
• Experience in managing large scale assessments end to end
• Experience in designing and implementing assessments at school level.
• Experience developing reporting templates and generate data summaries for large data sets
• Excellent communication and project management skills
• Willingness to multi-task and be flexible and adaptive to changing priorities
• Ability to build & manage relationships with government teams
• Fluency in English and Hindi

Desired Qualities

• Bias towards action and agility in operating style
• High level of integrity and strong work ethic
• Self-driven and ability to work independently
• Excellent organizational and time management skills
• Strong problem-solving ability and prioritization skills
• Thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment
• Demonstrate initiative and motivate others

Compensation

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and will depend upon the candidate’s experience levels.