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About This Role
The Education Manager provides technical leadership for the strategic design,
implementation, monitoring, and reporting of ChildFund Kenya’s education
programs. This role ensures alignment with ChildFund’s global education
strategy and Kenya’s education sector priorities. The portfolio includes
Early Childhood Development (ECD), nurturing care frameworks, foundational
learning (literacy and numeracy), social-emotional learning, digital
literacy, online safety, and child protection initiatives in both formal and
non-formal education settings.
The Education Manager will provide strategic leadership on Early Childhood
Development (ECD) within ChildFund Kenya’s education portfolio, ensuring
explicit alignment with global ECD frameworks and ChildFund’s Nurturing Care
approach.
The position will play a critical role in resource mobilization, donor
engagement, grant acquisition, and portfolio management, while fostering
partnerships and building technical capacity across all education, ECD, Child
Protection and safe digital learning programs. It will specifically
champion ECD donor priorities and coordinating closely with ECD-focused
donors while balancing broader foundational learning and digital safety
priorities.
Required Experience and Education
- Master’s
degree in education, Early Childhood Development, Social Sciences,
Development Studies, or related field.
- Experience:
- 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 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, and 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 his/her duty and
responsibility to safeguard,
- Report
violations, and promote appropriate behavior; and
- conduct
self in a manner consistent with the organization’s policies and values.
Required Competencies
ChildFund’s Core Competencies
- Teamwork: the
ability to work effectively and collaborate with others; values and
respects individual differences.
- Communication:
demonstrates empathy and tact when communicating with others and uses a
storytelling approach when appropriate.
- Results
orientation: gets things done; takes proactive steps to achieve
organizational goals and quality standards.
- Decision
making: uses good judgement, critical thinking, and
non-traditional ways to evaluate problems and opportunities; reflects
and innovates to improve decisions and outcomes.
- Resilience: thrives
and grows in rapidly changing, demanding, and complex environments.
- Digital
literacy: adopts and champions new technology to relevant
contexts, stays aware of technological trends and embraces technological
solutions to business challenges.
Other Required Competencies
- Language
requirement: The ability to read, speak, and write fluently in
English. Proficiency in Swahili will be an added advantage.
- In-depth
and hands-on experience in Education programming: Experience in
managing and implementing education sector programs including expertise
in early childhood development, nurturing care framework, child
protection, education policy, teacher training and building key
foundational skills (i.e., literacy, numeracy, social-emotional
learning) and curriculum development, and safeguarding.
- Technical
Expertise and Leadership: The ability to provide technical
support and leadership for the expansion and diversification of revenue
streams
- Grant
Proposal Development: Strong skills in technical writing;
ability to collaborate with other sector managers, and program technical
specialists and the Country Office, Regional and global business
development teams to craft well-aligned grant proposals that adhere to
ChildFund’s Results Framework, key sectoral and global practices, and
evidence of impact.
- Donor
Relations and Funding Models: Proficiency in identifying global
donors, cultivating relationships with key donors, advising on donor
trends, knowledge and understanding of existing and emerging funding
models.
- Education
Grant Acquisition: Expertise in leading the education grant
acquisition portfolio, focusing on proposal development.
- Impact
Assessment and Collaboration: Competence in guiding ChildFund
education program evidence and impact assessment needs, priorities, and
thought leadership strategy and product development.
- Capacity
Building and Training: Demonstrated ability to conduct
effective capacity building and training both in face-to-face and
virtual settings.
- Work
effectively in a matrix environment involves the ability to
navigate and collaborate within a matrix organizational structure, where
multiple reporting lines and cross-functional teams are common.
- Effective
representation and networking: represent the organization
effectively in various forums and build strong networks with technical
partners, multilateral agencies, foundations, and other stakeholders.
- Strong
computer skills, with familiarity in using Microsoft Office suite
applications: This competency requires proficiency in using
Microsoft Office suite applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
and Outlook.
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