TaRL Africa initiative is hosted by Empower Learning Africa, a not-for-profit organisation registered and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, with teams in Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Zambia and locally registered offices in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. TaRL Africa began as a joint venture by Pratham and J-PAL in 2019, with the goal of supporting governments and organisations across Africa to accelerate children’s foundational skill learning using the evidence-based “Teaching at the Right Level” (TaRL) approach. TaRL Africa’s vision is for every child across Africa to have foundational skills so that they can have a better future. Our mission is to ensure education systems effectively equip children with these foundational skills.
We support governments and organisations in over 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to design, deliver and scale impactful TaRL programmes while learning and sharing how the approach can be improved for different contexts. Together with partners, TaRL Africa has reached over 5.8 million children with TaRL programming.
Role Purpose
Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa seeks a Measurement, Monitoring and Review (MMR) Associate to support the measuring and monitoring component of TaRL interventions in Nigeria. The role will begin by focusing on the design and development of a TaRL programme in Kano. The MMR Associate will work together with the Kaduna state government to design a feasible and scalable monitoring strategy which integrates as much as possible into existing structures and systems, as well as provide ongoing support to Quality Assurance and EMIS officials to build their capacity to understand and respond to data. This role provides an excellent opportunity to improve the learning outcomes of primary school children in Kaduna State and to be part of a leading evidence-based initiative tackling the learning crisis in Africa.
Major roles and responsibilities:
1. Support the government and TaRL Africa team to develop a Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation (MLE) strategy/actions plans:
- Develop a strong understanding of the program and government’s existing measurement and monitoring systems.
- Support the development of measurement and data aggregation tools in collaboration with government officials.
- Collaborate with partners to incorporate monitoring and measurement best practices into the overall program design.
2. Support data collection, analysis, reporting, and dissemination:
- Regularly visit the programme schools, collate monitoring information and research, and support the team in writing case studies to highlight project impact and learning.
- Regularly document the field observations and feed into programme reviews and strengthening.
- Support the analysis of program data and prepare dashboards and reports as needed.
- Promote the sharing of programme best practices through formal and informal workshops of the field team.
- Communicate and connect with monitoring and teacher support staff within the government regularly through phone calls and in-person meetings.
- Engage actively with the government during critical data collection periods to troubleshoot as necessary.
3. Critically assess MLE systems:
- Coordinate and conduct reflection meetings and focus group discussions.
- Support the piloting of new measurement ideas and conduct regular school visits to assess their effectiveness.
- Regularly visit schools and government offices in different localities across the state to support government actors and examine measurement challenges.
4. Build government capacity:
- Work with officials(EMIS and QA officials) on data use strategies on a regular basis.
- Build the capacity of govt officials at different levels on data collection and review
5. Coordinate with the central team on research and learning efforts:
- Support scoping, designing and testing research and learning ideas.
- Support qualitative and quantitative research studies design and roll-out.
- For research activities requiring support from external survey firms, coordinate with the external survey firms from training to project finalization.
- Work in close collaboration with the research team and partner organizations to track overall progress on the project and ensure adherence to timelines and the project-plan.
- Provide support on preparing research proposals, design, survey implementation and monitoring, data management, report writing and dissemination and policy outreach.
- Join and contribute to learning team meetings and brainstorming on research projects.
- Coordinate with the Senior MLE Associate on learning objectives and on future larger research projects, including impact evaluations such as RCTs.
- Support high-quality data collection and analysis activities for research studies and learning activities.
Minimum requirements
- A Bachelor’s degree in Economics, M&E, Social Sciences, Development Studies, or a related field required.
- Posses 2-4 years relevant work experience.
- Strong data analysis skills with proven experience working with data software, including data collection, analysis and visualization platforms (Required: Advanced Excel; Strongly preferred: STATA, Kobo Collect, Power BI, SurveyCTO).
- Fluent in written and spoken English and Hausa.
Preferred:
- Experience working in the development or education in Nigeria.
- Familiarity with M&E frameworks and systems. Familiarity with RCTs is an added advantage.
- Familiarity with national learning assessment data.
- Familiarity with econometric and program evaluation techniques.
- Strong preference for Nigeria national.
Link: https://teachingattherightlevel.bamboohr.com/careers/31
