About Central Square Foundation
Founded in 2012, Central Square Foundation (CSF) is a non-profit philanthropic foundation working on the vision of ensuring quality school education for all children in India. We are driven by our mission to transform the school education system with a focus on improving children's learning outcomes, especially in low-income communities.
Learn more at the website.
About the position
The Early Childhood Education (ECE) stage, also known as the preschool/ pre-primary school stage, is the period between ages 3 to 6 years when a child ideally requires a center or school-based pre-primary education programme. Multi-disciplinary research from economics, neuroscience, and education has demonstrated that 90% of brain development occurs between the ages of 0-5 and that quality ECE is critical in determining a child’s life outcomes in terms of schooling, health, and income levels. The National Education Policy 2020 calls for 3 years of pre-primary education to enable robust early childhood learning.
The government of Uttar Pradesh has taken the lead on this. Uttar Pradesh has declared all co-located Anganwadis as Balvatikas and secured a significant budget for the Balvatika programme which includes dedicated, trained ECE educators.
CSF’s dedicated SPMU (State Project Management Unit), aims to augment the state’s capacity and implement the programme with high fidelity.
- Supporting the state in prioritising and planning critical ECE-related decisions (allocating budgets, human resource deployment, etc.)
- Augmenting the capacity of the state’s academic bodies (SCERT, DIETs) to design sound curricula, teacher guides, student workbooks, learning materials, training and mentoring
- Support in building the capacity of the State, District and field-level functionaries to set up and run an effective state-wide ECE programme (school identification, learning-friendly environment, educator hiring, supportive supervision, convergence on nutrition and health, etc.)
- Improving data systems and governance by creating and driving robust mechanisms to ensure data reliability and enhancing governance processes to drive ECE implementation in mission mode
- Capture learning and best practices from UP as a playbook for ECE in India.
Key Responsibilities
- Support the department in day-to-day activities related to the pre-primary unit including budgets, file movement, and monitoring
- Take ownership of critical governance workstreams like program design, implementation, communications, and monitoring and manage them end-to-end.
- Set up project management processes and guidelines and ensure that all activities are driving towards the defined goals
- Develop and manage strong working relationships with government stakeholders.
- Create internal alignment between different interventions and ECE partners in the state.
- Work with other teams at CSF on technical work streams such as academics, research and evaluation, and contextualise the same for the state.
- Knowledge management and documentation of the implementation of work in the state.
- Perform other relevant tasks as deemed necessary by the supervisor.
Required Qualifications, Skills, and Abilities
- Bachelor's degree from a reputed university; a Master's degree preferred (in education, development studies, public policy, and social sciences).
- 2 to 4 years of work experience, preferably in the education sector, demonstrating superb project delivery and stakeholder management.
- Keen interest in the development/education sector.
- Fluent in English with excellent reading and writing skills; Good verbal and written skills in Hindi.
- Past experience working with state and district-level governance and institutional structures is a must.
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team while taking initiative and responsibility.
- Knowledge and experience working on project management, large-scale program implementation with multiple delivery tracks, and monitoring, among others.
- Strong stakeholder management, problem-solving, and analytical skills.
How to Apply
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