Statistician

Program Background

The Government of Lebanon, with support from the international community, is implementing the Reaching All Children with Education (RACE) II Program. First launched in 2013, with Phase II becoming effective in July 2018, RACE seeks to improve access to formal education for 460,000 Syrian refugee children and underprivileged Lebanese children in the country. Efforts under this second phase Program are expected to minimize the short and medium-term costs of displacement for refugee families, while strengthening the long-term capacity of the Lebanese education system to prepare children for life and work once regional stability returns. MEHE, with the support of CERD, is responsible for implementing the S2R2 program.

Program Objectives

The Program Development Objective is to promote equitable access, enhance quality of learning, and strengthen the systems in Lebanon’s education sector in response to the protracted refugee crisis. The key results are as follows:

1. Increase in the proportion of school-aged Lebanese and non-Lebanese children (3–18) enrolled in formal education;
2. Increase in the proportion of students passing their grades, and transitioning to the next; and
3. Improvement in MEHE’s capacity to review, evaluate, and update Program implementation.

Tasks and Responsibilities

Under the S2R2 Program, the Center for Educational Research and Development (CERD) is looking for a Statistician to work closely with the Senior Statistician to support CERD on the following main tasks and responsibilities:

1. Support instatistical data analysis and in the preparation of assessments, survey tools, and questionnaires;
2. Support the senior statistician and CERD-ERB teamsin conducting research andimplementing the quantitative methods for the different projects under the S2R2 Program;
3. Support in producing statistical reports based on descriptive and inferential statistics;
4. Support the senior statistician and CERD teamsin preparing / draftingreports and presentationswithstatistical data, educational indicators,and trends;
5. Support in designing and developing dashboards to display educational data within the S2R2 program jointly with the senior statistician and Educational Research Bureau (ERB) team;
6. Support in ensuring the validity and reliability of collected data while aligning  by internationally accepted educational standards and guidelines;
7. Support in the preparation of executive summaries and/or presentations summarizing major findings and statistical results;
8. Maintain filing and archiving of printed and electronic reports, surveys and dashboards for future data utilization;
9. Support in training and building the capacity of CERD researchers and CERD-ERB teams on statistical and research tools and software;
10. Perform other tasks related to the program objectives as assigned by CERD President or S2R2 Steering Committee.

Previous Experience

• At least 5 years of professional experience in the field of educational statistics and analysis at the national and/or sub-national levels/or higher education level.
• Experience working with national/official data sets and in managing data collection;
• Experience working with national authorities or with MEHE staff to deliver capacity development trainings in the field of education and analysis is a strong asset.

Behavioral Skills       

1. Strong analytical and critical thinking skills;
2. Excellent organizational skills with the ability to think proactively and prioritize work;
3. Ability to work under pressure and to deliver accurate results within tight deadlines;
4. Strong interpersonal, teamwork and communication skills.

Technical and Computer Skills

1. Digitally savvy with advanced knowledge of MS Office and very good command of statistical applications such as STATA, SPSS, and/or R;
2. Knowledge of international standards for official statistics;
3. Proven experiencewith sampling methods and with developing statisticaldashboards;
4. Understanding of quantitative and qualitative approaches in social sciences in general and in educational research in particular
5. Ability to implement and evaluate educational projects.