Education Specialist – Kiev, Ukraine

All NRC employees are expected to work in accordance with the organisation’s core values: dedication, innovation, inclusivity and accountability. These attitudes and believes shall guide our actions and relationships.

Since the 24th of February 2022, NRC Ukraine has greatly scaled up its operations and is now running a large scale multi-sectoral emergency response. NRC is present across the country, with based in Dnipro, Lviv and Kiev and a several Field Offices to expand the geographical coverage. NRC is as well operational in Odessa, through the Moldova/Romania CO as a cross-border response. The programme currently includes all NRC core competencies (Shelter, WASH, ICLA, CM, Protection, LFS and Education).

The Education Specialist will be based in the Country Office in Kyiv and will be part of the Programme Unit.

Role and responsibilities

The purpose of the Education Specialist position is technical development of the education CC, strategic direction and quality assurance, the education strategy and quality control. The Education Specialist is responsible for mentoring, training, and capacity development of staff on education technical capacity.

The following is a brief description of the role.

Generic responsibilities

1. Develop Education strategy, technical SOPs, and Macro LFAs in line with NRC Programme Policy and national and international standards, and in coordination with other Core Competences
2. Compliance with and adherence to NRC policies, guidance and procedures
3. Contribute to fundraising, develop and revise funding proposal, budgets and donor reports
4. Identify trends technical standards and donor priorities
5. Follow up on compliance with contractual commitments within CC, ensure high technical quality and synergies in project implementation
6. Provide technical direction and project implementation support
7. Ensure that key learnings are extracted from education CC implementation, and incorporate them in education CC and staff development processes
8. Provide systematic training and build capacity of technical staff
9. Represent NRC in relevant forums/clusters, including with national authorities and donors
10. Promote the rights of IDPs/returnees in line with the advocacy strategy

Specific responsibilities

1. Responsible for the scale up the Education response in Ukraine, identify new opportunities for programming, synergies with the other CCs and partnerships.
2. Provide technical guidance to Education Programme staff throughout the NRC’s operational locations and support project’s implementation support
3. Analyse the needs of the education team in terms of capacity strengthening, build and implement a capacity strengthening plan
4. Identify trends technical standards and donor priorities. Develop and contribute to programme proposals and donor dialogues
5. Initiate and conduct new assessments relevant for the Education CC in coordination with other CC to ensure synergies and multi-sector responses

Critical interfaces

By interfaces, NRC means processes and projects that are interlinked with other departments/units or persons. Relevant interfaces for this position are:

• Programme development: Education Core Competencies section (CEERO and HO Oslo), Education Regional Advisor, Head of Programme, Ukraine-based CC specialists/PDMs,
• Proposal development: Area Manager, Project Managers, Grants Manager, Head of Programmes, M&E Manager
• Monitoring: M&E staff, Regional M&E Adviser
• Finance, budget development and follow up: Finance Manager
• Quality control/ support: Area Manager, M&E team
• Recruitments, capacity building and staff development: HR Manager, Project staff, Area Managers
• Programme implementation: Programme staff, Area Managers and Support staff

Scale and scope of position

• Staff: Technical line management of protection teams in Area and Field Offices
• Stakeholders: Education Cluster, UN agencies, INGOs, local NGOs, CBOs, civil society, governmental bodies
• Budgets: Institutional and private funding
• Information: Interfacing with NRC systems including GORS, Agresso, NRC People, SharePoint
• Legal or compliance: According to the organization rules and regulations

Generic professional competencies for this position:

• Minimum 5 years of experience within technical expertise area in a humanitarian/ recovery context
• Experience from working in complex and volatile contexts
• Education Core competency expertise.
• Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities
• Knowledge about own leadership skills/profile
• Fluency in English, both written and verbal

Context/specific skills, knowledge and experience:

• Experience in shaping and scaling up education in emergencies response including assessments, developing response strategies.
• Experience in implementing the following interventions is an asset: Psychosocial Support interventions, (including Better Learning Programme), cash/vouchers in education, Youth programming.
• Experience with applying ICT tools in assessments, for analysis, documentation and reporting
• Experience with developing proposals, budgets, work plans, and monitoring and evaluation.
• Experience with capacity building and team building of staff and community mobilization
• Experience with partnership-based approaches, coordination and holistic programme designs
• Knowledge and understanding of humanitarian standards such as INEE and Sphere
• Knowledge of the context in Ukraine and/or neighbouring countries is an asset
• Proficiency in Ukrainian language (desired)