Secondary Education and Youth Development Specialist

Background

World Education, a division of JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. (JSI/WE) is dedicated to improving people’s lives around the world through greater heath, education and socioeconomic equity for individuals and communities, and to providing an environment where people of passion can pursue this cause. JSI/WE is seeking a Secondary Education and Youth Development Specialist for the anticipated USAID Malawi Secondary Success Activity, a program that will build on existing structures to increase the availability, access, and quality of education, including remedial skills, life skills, health and leadership, mentorship, and financial inclusion. Expatriates and Third Country Nationals will be considered.

To apply visit  https://www.jsi.com/ and follow the instructions in the application portal, or email CVs to recruitmentmalawi@worlded.org. 

Application Deadline: April 19, 2024

Job Summary

The Secondary Education and Youth Development Specialist's primary responsibility is to provide oversight to all education interventions and collaborate with all relevant education departments nationally and locally at the regional and district levels. S/he will lead the development and implementation of an evidence-based training and coaching model for bilingual instruction, as appropriate, and support the development of parental engagement activities. S/he will provide oversight to all youth development and education interventions, working closely with government agencies and a network of youth-led/serving organizations to develop and implement the overall program’s youth development strategy and design evidence-based interventions to successfully engage youth, women, and vulnerable populations in program activities.

Responsibilities

• Ensure quality of education interventions and lead the mainstreaming of Positive Youth Development (PYD) across the program, including supporting staff to understand PYD principles and actively integrate evidence-based strategies in their technical, operational, and/or Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) work;

• Develop, adapt, or revise teaching and learning materials, teacher guides, and extra-curricular life skills and financial literacy manuals ensuring they are gender sensitive and inclusive as required;

• Review project work plans, designing activities that target diverse groups of youth, including age- and developmentally-appropriate activities, and activities that are responsive to and target marginalized youth groups (e.g., young women, youth with disabilities, etc.) to promote access and quality of secondary education;

• Coordinate effective partnerships with Ministry of Education partners at the local, district, division, and national level, relevant public and private sector partners, civil society, and community-based organizations, including organizations serving distinct groups of young people and/or with expertise in ethnic inclusion, gender, disability inclusion as relevant;

• Implement gender and youth social inclusion-focused research, including analyses, assessments, and other learning studies to better understand barriers to and entry points to achieve equitable access and success in secondary education with technical teams; 

• Strengthen the capacity of staff, partners, and stakeholders to integrate gender equity, PYD, and other social inclusion considerations into intervention design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation, in alignment alignment with the requirements of USAID’s gender and youth policies and strategies;

• Support the MEL team in reviewing indicators, setting targets, planning for data collection, analysis, and reporting, and setting learning priorities around learning outcomes, PYD, and gender and social inclusion results;

• Contribute to quarterly and annual project reporting and internal documentation as required;

• Disseminate lessons learned among program staff and stakeholders.

Qualifications

• A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in education, gender studies, youth development, international studies, sociology, or social sciences is required. Master’s degree or equivalent preferred;

• At least 8-10 years of consecutive proven work experience in education programming, youth development, gender and social inclusion and/or integrated cross-sectoral programs or similar donor support initiatives in related areas, including management positions in Malawi: USAID experience preferred; 

• Familiarity with USAID’s Positive Youth Development Framework, including gender and youth policies, and do no harm approach;

• Demonstrated experience and familiarity with the Malawian secondary education curriculum, continuous and summative assessment design, and program adaptation to achieve results;

• Solid contextual knowledge of barriers to education and youth development in Malawi (i.e. issues impacting youth employment opportunities, barriers to education, the non-formal education system, access to healthcare and barriers to practicing healthy behaviors, mechanisms for youth financial inclusion, etc.);

• Demonstrated experience conducting gender and/or youth analysis, including qualitative data collection;

• Proven interpersonal skills with the ability to build personal relationships with staff, donor partners, and government stakeholders at all levels in a culturally sensitive manner;

• Program/project management experience working with rural, underserved populations;

• Demonstrated experience developing youth engagement strategies and approaches, and building the capacity of staff and partners to operationalize these;

• Demonstrated experience and knowledge of capacity building and professional development in a developing country, preferably in Malawi;

• Effective oral and written communication skills to make formal and informal presentations and compose professional and analytical reports and program documents in English.