Country: Ethiopia

Organization: Save the Children

Closing date: 1 May 2022

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in Emergency Technical Advisor

Summary

Save the Children is seeking an Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in Emergency Technical Advisor for a five-year USAID-funded Early Childhood Care and Education in emergency program in Ethiopia. The program focuses on improving early learning and holistic development outcomes for preschool-aged children in emergency contexts. The Technical Advisor builds capacity of technical staff, and continuously oversees and coordinates high-quality, inclusive and responsive early childhood care and education at the federal, regional, zonal and woreda levels.

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in Emergency Technical Advisor reports to the Chief of Party and will provide technical leadership and oversight to the technical team with responsibility for all activities associated with early learning, care and holistic development. They will provide technical support to improving quality, inclusive play-based, safe, equitable and conflict sensitive ECCE services for children, their caregivers and teachers, and the ECE systems at federal and local levels in emergency settings in Ethiopia.

This position is contingent upon donor approval and funding.

What You'll Be Doing (Essential Duties)

Early Childhood Care and Education in Emergency Contexts Analysis and Strategy

• Support national and local level ECCE policy, strategy, guidelines, and curriculum a
• Provide technical assistance in the ECCE data analysis and evidence generation, and use of evidence in running quality ECCE programming and implementation.
• Align ECCE approach to Ethiopia's National ECCE Policy Framework, and advance USAID Ethiopia's 2019-2024 Country Development and Cooperative Strategy (CDCS), considering cross-sectoral linkages for more holistic services for children.
• Design and carry out IRs which address capacity strengthening for providers, improving knowledge, skills, motivation and wellbeing for education and local administrators.
• Provide support to technical staff to strengthen the wellbeing of caregivers and communities to cope with trauma and loss.
• Guide technical staff in supporting caregivers to provide nurturing care, quality, play based ECCE, and ensure the generation and use of evidence on adaptive implementation of ECCE.
• Support in identifying challenges and barriers for access to quality and play based ECCE in emergency
• Provide technical support to partners and government in the design and implementation of holistic early learning approaches that are inclusive, conflict sensitive and responsive to shocks and emergencies.
• Lead the design and implementation of the play based and integrated Early Childhood Care and Education project.
• Lead the development of Early Childhood Care and Education project strategy and ensure ECCE in emergencies data, results of data analysis and recommendations are integrated into project plans.
• Update the project strategy annually alongside the project work plan using formal and informal feedback to meet the goals of USAID's Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) approach.
• Coordinate with project staff, including managers and technical specialists to ensure the implementation of the ECCE strategy in project activities.
• Play a lead role in proactively identifying potential implementation bottlenecks, key decision processes and decision-makers, and helping to expedite implementation of education system strengthening and sustainability measures as per relevant USAID and LEGO guidance and strategies, annual work plans and country sustainability plans.
• Team up and work along inter and intra ECCE staff and functions.

Project Implementation

• Support SCI field offices, MOE, Regional Education Bureaus and district education offices in ECCE project planning and implementation.
• Ensure project updates and progress reports are linked with project success indicators, and support project donor reporting and annual work plan preparation.
• Work with and support project and GoE Monitoring, Evaluation, and Accountability and Learning (MEAL) teams to: develop context-specific and sector wide applicable indicators for ECCE in emergency contexts; and collect and analyze data to inform programming, learning and adaptations.
• Support field offices advising and ensuring quality play-based learning approaches are implemented and documented.

Coordination & Capacity Building

• Build capacity and mentorship of project, partner and Government of Ethiopia staff in Early Childhood Care and Education principles, and play based methods and
• Ensure alignment with Save the Children ECCE priorities and strategies and complementarity between existing and planned programs.
• Represent Early Childhood Care and Education aspects of the project to external stakeholders, such as the donor, governments, and partners; disseminate learnings and best practices; and participate in technical working groups.
• Contribute to GoE ECCE capacity building plans and curriculum implementation activities.
• Promote strengthening of cross‐sector collaboration in Ethiopia, based on the country context, including with education, early childhood care and education, health, nutrition, child protection and WASH.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in education, Early Childhood Care and Education, Developmental Psychology, humanitarian assistance, international development or in a closely related field is
• Minimum of ten (10) years' experience and demonstrated practical skills that include substantial experience working in education in crisis and conflict contexts, as well as early childhood care and education programming.
• Experience in the designing and application of play-based activities in ECCE or other education programs will be an asset.
• Experience in Ethiopia or regional experience is preferred.
• Five years of experience working with consortium based approach to education program implementation with early childhood care and education as a component, systems strengthening activities, as well as integration with ECCE and EiE.
• Experience in education quality improvement/quality assurance; integrating gender and disabilities in ECCE in emergencies, and the use of education related data in program design and implementationin systems Experience in analyzing education and ECCE data, and engaging in policy dialogues at different levels for providing inputs to ECCE policy and strategy development/revision.
• Experience in designing and implementing emergent literacy, emergent numeracy and socio-emotional learning approaches in ECCE at the center and/ or at home is highly desired.
• Excellent knowledge of holistic child development and understanding of global evidence, best practices, and gaps around early childhood care and education
• Experience in integrating and mainstreaming disability and inclusion in ECCE programming in low-resource settings.
• Demonstrated experience working with children experiencing deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability and their families.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and Amharic are highly desirable.
• Proven experience in building capacity of program staff in local NGOs and INGOs and government bodies in country, and working collaboratively with partners and/or key stakeholders.
• Qualified local candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

About Save the Children

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In Ethiopia, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children - every day and in times of crisis - transforming their lives and the future we share.

Our work for children and their families requires that we commit-at every opportunity-to work together to identify and dismantle persistent systemic and structural inequality and any other forms of discrimination in Ethiopia. As an anti-racist organization, Save the Children will not tolerate discrimination in any form-in our employment practices, amongst our staff, in our leadership or toward the people we serve. We stand in solidarity with all people to fight for equal rights, justice, inclusion, and belonging.

We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, ancestry, sexual orientation, national origin, age, handicap, disability, marital status, or status as a veteran. Save the Children complies with all applicable laws.

Save the Children is committed to conducting its programs and operations in a manner that is safe for the children it serves and helping protect the children with whom we are in contact. All Save the Children representatives are explicitly prohibited from engaging in any activity that may result in any kind of child abuse. In addition, it is Save the Children's policy to create and proactively maintain an environment that aims to prevent and deter any actions and omissions, whether deliberate or inadvertent, that place children at the risk of any kind of child abuse. All our representatives are expected to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with this commitment and obligation.

Save the Children is committed to minimizing safety and security risks for our valued employees, ensuring all are given training, support and information to reduce their risk exposure while maximizing the impact of our programs for children and families. Our shared duty, both agency and individual, is to seek and maintain safe working conditions for all.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor's legal duty to furnish information.

How to apply

Please follow this link to apply CLICK HERE