Senior Literacy Specialist

Chemonics seeks a Senior Literacy Specialist for the USAID Zambia Foundational. This five-year activity will seek to provide technical assistance in the education sector to scale the Primary Literacy Program (PLP), support the Ministry of Education to institutionalize the PLP and early learning reforms, and enhance the delivery of remedial and catch-up education. This position will be based in Lusaka, Zambia. We are looking for individuals who have a passion for making a difference in the lives of people around the world.

Responsibilities include:

• Support teacher professional development and improvement of classroom instruction to enhance learning outcomes for the project
• Responsible for developing training materials and managing national teacher training.
• Will collaboratively design and coordinate training in technical areas relevant to early grade reading.
• Guides program staff on essential components of reading programs as relevant, possibly including curriculum design, lesson planning, instructional approach, teacher professional development, materials development and distribution, classroom-level assessment and large-scale assessment to develop highly effective activities in these areas and to integrate them for maximum effectiveness at the program level.
• Engages directly with host-country government and other organizations on their capacity development needs with the overall aim of improving equitable and high-quality service delivery to host-country populations for improved reading outcomes.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in education or other relevant fields; academic coursework with a focus on curriculum development or reading instruction highly preferred
• Minimum four years of experience in technical direction of international programs that work specifically to improve early grade literacy
• Prior experience with the development of early grade reading materials, training programs, classroom monitoring protocols, and tests and assessments (including Early Grade Reading Assessment)
• Minimum four years of experience in conducting teacher training/coaching and training of trainers
• Prior experience working with communities, government, and other donors to support improved reading preferred
• Demonstrated knowledge of international evidence-based approaches to learning reading using phonics and systematic, structured, and explicit instruction required; experience using these approaches in instructional design or direct instruction strongly preferred
• Experience and expertise in overseeing the design of instructional materials for large-scale education programs required
• Minimum three years of demonstrated excellence in a management position, preferably including direct supervision and evaluation of professional staff and multiple concurrent project deliverables preferred
• Fluent written and spoken English required, and fluent Nyanja/Chewa and Bemba highly preferred