Regional Education Specialist - (Amman-Lebanon-Iraq)

Job Description

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure.

The IRC seeks a Regional Education Specialist for the Middle East Region, specifically to support education teams and ensure quality implementation for programs in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq.  To ensure quality programming towards impacting the lives of children and youth affected by conflict and crisis through IRC’s work, the Regional Education Specialist will:

Core Functions: 

• Provide technical support to the education teams to improve the quality of implementation  Collaborate with the field office staff to develop social and emotional learning, multi-grade and second language learning materials and training tools for non-formal education spaces. This must include working sessions with IRC field staff, lesson planning workshops with other stakeholders, field testing, and revising training, teaching, and learning materials.
• Design, review and share program-specific tools/ resources/ curricula with education teams;
•  Assess and clearly define the training needs of field staff through close communication with field team; and actively seek out formal and informal training opportunities for education staff.
• Conduct technical training and ongoing technical coaching for country program staff, including on social and emotional learning and teacher professional development;
• Build capacity of the team in the different selected program methodologies, and provide technical support and ongoing coaching to ensure high-quality program implementation.  
• Provide support in the training and implementation of these materials and training tools;
• Collaborate with the education teams on the contextualization of resources based on needs;
• Adapt curriculum materials with field staff based on context needs and field office requests;
• Collaborate with field teams to monitor and use data for continuous quality improvement;
• Undertake regular field monitoring visits to assess progress and identify technical quality issues and/or other implementation issues, provide solutions and implement modifications;
• Cross-country analysis of tools and materials, in coordination with the Education Technical Advisor, to better understand overlaps and technical synergies across the region.
• Other education-related duties as assigned by Education Technical Advisor – Middle East.
• Foster a team spirit to encourage quality programming.

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to:  Education Technical Advisor – Middle East

Position directly supervises:  N/A

Indirect Reporting: N/A

Other Internal and/or external contacts:

Internal: Education or CYPD Coordinators (Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen); Education Managers, MEAL, and Officers (Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen); Regional team; Education Technical Unit (Global)

External:  This position includes relationship-building with partner organizations and ministries of Education on technical materials and technical implementation experience

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in education, education psychology, social work, human development or relevant field or equivalent is required.  Master’s degree is preferred.
• Work Experience: A minimum of 4 years of implementing and/or managing large Education programs and teams is required. Education work experience in the Middle East is required.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies: Demonstrated expertise in technical tools and education materials development in Arabic. Expertise in program assessment, design, content development, monitoring and evaluation, and implementation with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action. Expertise in social and emotional learning is required.

Language Skills:  Fluency in Arabic and English required. Specifically advanced content development experience in Arabic, and advanced reporting skills in English is required.

Working Environment:  Position is flexible to be based in Amman, Beirut, or Erbil, with up to 40% travel to Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq.