Creative seeks to fill several new positions to support a five-year program, The Northern Nigeria Education
Initiative Plus (NEI+)funded by the United States Agency for International Development.
NEI+ works to improve the quality of and access to education in Northern Nigeria, equitably and sustainably. All positions will be based in the project office in Abuja. Some positions may require travel within other regions of Nigeria, including the Northern States.
Communications Officer
Position Summary:The Communications Officer will be responsible for leading, directing, and managing the public affairs and information operations of the NEI+ project.
Reporting & Supervision:
This position is housed in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting directly to the Chief of Party.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Creates and implements comprehensive communications outreach programs for the dissemination of information on project activities
- Creates and implements a comprehensive public relations program to release positive publicity about the program through various media
- Responds to all press inquiries, in accordance with Creative’s corporate media policy
- Advises and counsels program on public relations techniques impacting program activities including potential problems and opportunities in the various communities served
- Promotes communication to the USAID Mission about the project for dissemination on Mission web pages or to other USAID Missions and to HQ for publication in quarterly newsletters and web
- Writes and supervises the writing and disseminating of news releases, daily reports, USAID quarterly reports, and project documents
- Supervises and arranges taking, processing and disseminating photographs; prepares and disseminates radio and television material; produces posters, signs, displays, media campaigns, etc.
- Implements the USAID Branding and Marking Plan as contracted
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s Degree in Social Sciences, Communications, or related field
- 5+ years’ experience in communications, preferably for a USAID-funded project.
- Fluent in spoken and written English.
Community Mobilization Officer
Position Summary:The Community Mobilization Officer will be responsible for implementing activities to increase community awareness and support of schooling in targeted non-formal education and alternative education learning center communities. This includes implementing a small grants program to enable CSOs to establish community coalitions and learning centers, building the capacity of CSOs and executing awareness campaigns to strengthen the community’s demand for education.The Community Mobilization Specialist will be responsible for implementing activities related to reestablishing a national culture of reading. This includes coordinating with national efforts.
****Reporting & Supervision:****
This position is housed in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting to the Deputy Chief of Party.
Primary Responsibilities:
- mobilize communities around formal and non-formal schools to promote access to education,
- establish community coalitions and learning centers, building the capacity of CSOs,
- conduct awareness campaigns to strengthen the community’s demand for quality education,
- promote a culture of reading through innovation, social accountability, and ownership of reading gains by enhancing civil society engagement;
- promote public discourse about reading;
- engage Nigerian organizations to develop and lead projects aimed at piloting or scaling-up effective models to stimulate reading, introduce additional reading materials at the community level;
- support research related to reading acquisition and correlating factors;
- generate momentum with communities themselves to spearhead increased interest and opportunities for everyone to participate in reading through community engagement campaigns and a grants mechanism for Community-Based Organizations (CBOs);
- work with communities to develop strategies, identify funding needs, and monitor projects in collaboration with community-level networks;
- help create a generation of children who want to learn to read and parents who want teachers who can teach their children to read, generating a demand for future reading instruction and assessment improvements by working with communities to re-establish a culture of reading;
- Engage parents and siblings in fostering a culture of reading (e.g., listening to children read)
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- At least 5 years of experience in community outreach or community mobilization
- Demonstrated experience managing community engagement campaigns, preferably in the education sector
- Experience with international organizations’ community grants mechanisms
- Demonstrated experience in developing and implementing capacity building plans in culturally, politically, and security sensitive environments
- In-depth understanding of the role of civil society in development
- Demonstrated capacity in managing staff
- Fluency in English
- Bachelor’s Degree in International Development, Communications, Social Work, or other related field. Master’s degree preferred.
Access and Fragility Specialist
Position Summary: The Access and Fragility Specialist provides the overall technical expertise on the expansion of access-related activities, including risk reduction and safety, gender based violence, equitable education services, education and conflict analysis, non-formal education, well-being, psychosocial support and ensuring activities are conflict-sensitive and do no harm.
Reporting & Supervision:
This position is housed in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting to the Senior Educational Access/Fragility Specialist.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Analyze and address barriers to educational access and participation;
- Assess issues of supply and demand for education options/services;
- Conduct analysis and assessment of education needs in emergencies;
- Integrate a conflict-sensitive approach to education,
- Lead preparation of activity designs; adapting rapidly changing activity designs;
- Implement successful strategies to combat school-related gender based violence;
- Implement risk reduction and psychosocial well-being activities, and other related areas.
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- Requires a Master’s Degree in education.
- At least eight years of experience in the education sector, with at least five years of a leadership role in a conflict or crisis-affected country context.
- The candidate must demonstrate at least five years of relevant technical experience working with activities that are of a similar scope to this activity.
- The candidate is also responsible for some monitoring and evaluation, with at least five years’ technical experience in developing and implementing monitoring and evaluation plans and results-based management. The candidate must be professionally proficient and fluent in written and spoken English.
Teacher Education Specialist
Position Summary:The Senior Teacher Education Specialist will be responsible for providing technical leadership for all teacher education activities, including leading and coordinating the teacher education and systems support activities at the national and state level. The position requires experience with teacher training policy and practice, designing programs for data collection and analysis, and personnel management.
Reporting & Supervision:
This position is housed in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting to the Senior Reading Specialist.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Lead integrated state and LGEA, SUBEB, and SBMC working groups and steering committees in the following tasks:
- Identification of education priorities
- Assessment of education standards
- Review and strengthen instructional quality and teacher performance assessments
- Strengthen instructional quality standards
- Ensure technical coordination of state-level activities and obtain support from directorates and local government authorities as needed.
- Work closely with the Reading Specialist to manage support staff and consultants as needed to ensure the smooth implementation of project activities across technical areas.
- Ensure the timely production, coordination, and reporting of all data: quarterly reports, M&E data, financial information, etc.
- Support the development of reading curriculum and standards in colleges of education in collaboration with NCCE and state based colleges of education.
- Participate in regular meetings and maintain regular communication with state level team counterparts, and with the Senior Reading Specialist to ensure coherent planning, M&E practices, and project troubleshooting.
- Represent the project in major state meetings and events as appropriate.
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- Requires a Master’s Degree in education.
- At least eight years of experience in the education sector, with at least five years of a leadership role in a conflict or crisis-affected country context.
- The candidate must demonstrate at least five years of relevant technical experience working with activities that are of a similar scope to this activity.
- The candidate is also responsible for some monitoring and evaluation, with at least five years’ technical experience in developing and implementing monitoring and evaluation plans and results-based management.
- The candidate must be professionally proficient and fluent in written and spoken English.
Hausa Reading Specialist
Position Summary:The Hausa reading specialist provides overall technical oversight and guidance to the project’s support to improved reading instruction.
Reporting & Supervision:
This position is housed in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting to the Senior Reading Specialist.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Supervise the development and production of all NEI+-supported Hausa reading curriculum and material,
- Coordinate and support all NEI+-supported trainings in Hausa reading, all teacher and classroom supervision and monitoring and all student testing efforts.
- Ensure complementarity of activity approaches in reading across the three NEI+ activity states,
- Liaise with government representatives and technicians on technical matters, and bears ultimate responsibility for ensuring that children in NEI+ public, IQTE, and NFLC schools achieve improved outcomes in reading Hausa.
- Works closely with the Senior Reading Specialist to develop working relationship with NERDC
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- Requires a Master’s Degree in education, preferably with a specialty in early grade reading. Ph.D. in education with a focus on early childhood education and/or early grade learning preferred.
- At least 8 years of experience in programs in sub-Saharan Africa that work specifically to improve early grade reading is required.
- Prior experience with the development of early grade reading materials, training programs, classroom monitoring protocols, and tests and assessments, including EGRA, is required.
- Prior experience with supporting civil-society based monitoring of reading outcomes is required.
- The candidate must be professionally proficient and fluent in written and spoken English. It is preferred, but not required, that the candidate be conversant and fluent in written Hausa.
Logistics/Procurement Manager
Position Summary:The Logistics/Procurement Officer will be responsible for assisting with day-to-day management of NEI+ operations.
Reporting & Supervision:
This position is housed in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting to the Senior Finance Specialist.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Provides oversight of Vehicle logs, vehicle maintenance
- Identify Vehicle needs and reviews driver time sheet
- Customs Clearance for NEI+ properties
- Coordinates transportation and delivery of Procurement and inventory.
- Conducting and updating inventory database of the office on a monthly basis
- Soliciting bids and quotes from potential vendor and ensure they are accord with NEI+ procurement protocols.
- Preparation of price comparison sheets
- Procurement, logistic, Events Management and Transportation as per the NEI+ policies and procedures.
- Any other related tasks as assigned by supervisors.
- Any logistical task required for good project operations.
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- At least 3 year experience responding to procurement/logistics requests related to supplies, materials for project related activities.
- Bachelor’s degree in a related field
- Must be extremely reliable, trustworthy and a good team worker.
- Flexible in working hours.
Senior System Strengthening Specialist
Position Summary:The Senior System Strengthening Specialist will be responsible for overseeing all systems and policy-related activities.
Reporting & Supervision:
This position is housed in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting to the Deputy Chief of Party.
Primary Responsibilities:
- facilitate a process with state governments and other stakeholders to map and review existing education policy frameworks, especially around systems, access, reading instruction, and assessment;
- work with FMOE, SMOEs, UBEC, NMEC, SUBEB, SAME, MORA to provide support to sustain existing policy initiatives and facilitate development and implementation of new policies, particularly in the areas of systems, access, reading instruction, assessment, and accountability;
- support implementation and monitoring of policy action plans as part of the reading improvement strategy;
- facilitate policy review meetings with regard to reading and access to track progress in implementing new policies, identify corrective actions to speed implementation, and develop tools to assess impact;
- improve the capacity of government education officials to develop leadership, managerial, and supervisory skills to effectively implement policies and regulations with regard to access and reading;
- provide coaching on various issues including data analysis and evidence-based decision making, monitoring, and staff mentoring;
- support dissemination of new policies and opportunities for bottom-up feedback at all levels through state-level workshops involving government education officials; community meetings; IT; paper publications; and ongoing media campaigns.
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- At least 5 years of experience in a leadership position responsible for developing policy frameworks, preferably in the field of education
- Demonstrated experience working with government agencies, actors, and other stakeholders at the national and state levels
- Demonstrated expertise in policy mapping
- Demonstrated capacity to lead workshops, trainings, and strategic planning sessions
- Experience in Monitoring and Evaluation
- Masters Degree in Public Policy or related field. Master’s degree strongly preferred.
NGO Capacity Building Officer
Position Summary:The NGO Capacity Building Officer will be responsible for implementing activities to increase community awareness and support of schooling in targeted non-formal education and alternative education learning center communities. This includes implementing a small grants program to enable CSOs to establish community coalitions and learning centers, building the capacity of CSOs and executing awareness campaigns to strengthen the community’s demand for education.
Reporting & Supervision:
This position is housed in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting to the Community Mobilization Officer.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Establishes and trains new Community Coalitions or other local education support groups and committees
- Provides partner CSOs with day-to-day mentoring on project design, implementation, and monitoring.
- Supports the consistent application of training materials to strengthen CSO organizational management, HR and financial systems and provide technical support in community mobilization.
- Engages and serves as program focal point with CSOs and supported communities.
- Coordinates donor, stakeholder, and field staff visits to CSOs and communities.
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- At least 5 years of experience in community outreach or community mobilization
- Demonstrated experience managing community engagement campaigns, preferably in the education sector
- Experience with international organizations’ community grants mechanisms
- Demonstrated experience in developing and implementing capacity building plans in culturally, politically, and security sensitive environments
- In-depth understanding of the role of civil society in development
- Demonstrated capacity in managing staff
- Bachelor’s Degree in International Development, Communications, Social Work, or other related field. Master’s degree preferred.
Method of Application
Local and regional candidates are encouraged to apply.
To apply, please send a short cover letter and CV to recruiting@crea-neiplus.com.
Please indicate the position for which you are applying in the Subject of the email.
