Education Specialist

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.

1. Role Summary:

The purpose of the Education Specialist position is technical development of the Education Programme, strategic direction, and quality assurance.  He/she is also responsible for implementing the strategy and performing quality control. The Education Specialist is responsible for mentoring, training, capacity building of staff on technical capacity.

Generic Responsibilities:

1. Develop the Education strategy and provide technical guidance.
2. Ensure compliance with and adherence to NRC policies, guidance, and procedures.
3. Contribute to fundraising, develop and revise funding proposals, budgets and donor reports.
4. Identify trends in technical standards and donor priorities.
5. Follow up on compliance with contractual commitments within Education Programme, and 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 implementation, and incorporate them in the programme and staff development processes.
8. Provide systematic training and build the capacity of technical staff.
9. Represent NRC in relevant fora/clusters, including with national authorities and donors.
10. Oversee and be responsible of mainstreaming protection guidelines in the NRC’s related activities as per NRC’s Protection mainstreaming guidelines and ensure that all breaches/concerns reported are properly resolved.
11. Receive the referral information related to protection cases on a monthly basis from the related focal points and take proper actions to ensure that the referral system is functioning to the best interest of beneficiaries as per NRC’s referral’s SOPs.

Specific Responsibilities:

• Develop, support and guide NRC’s  education projects in Lebanon including non-formal education and system strengthening.
• Liaise and follow-up with government interlocutors on existing and future collaborations and projects.
• Assist and support needs assessments and plan response to new emergencies.
• Lead on the Education CC strategic programme planning, resource mobilization (including leading on fundraising for the Education programme).
• Adapt the programme to the changing context, including the COVID-19 outbreak, as necessary throughout the project and programme life cycles.
• Support the harmonization and consistency across education projects implemented in the field offices.
• Ensure technical quality and innovation of the Education programme including strategic oversight in the technical direction, programmatic learning objectives, M&E tools, etc., and in seeking synergies with other programmes and projects.
• Provide technical direction and project implementation support to the Head of Operations, Area Managers, Project Managers, and Project Coordinators in the field.
• Evaluate, review and ensure quality control of ongoing and completed Education projects.

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: Core Competencies units – head office and regional office.
• Proposal development: Head of Operations, Area Managers, Project Managers
• Quality control/ support: Area Managers
• Capacity development: Project staff, Area Managers

2. Competencies:

Competencies are important in order for the employee and the organisation to deliver desired results. They are relevant for all staff and are divided into the following three categories:

1. Professional Competencies:

These are skills, knowledge and experience that are important for effective performance.

• Bachelor degree in any related field
• Minimum 6 years of experience within technical expertise area in a humanitarian/recovery context + having worked on education in the past year in the context of COVID-19.
• Experience from working in complex and volatile contexts
• Fluency in English, both written and spoken
• Donor knowledge and experience: ECHO, ECW, KFW, AFD and others
• Knowledge of Lebanon context and response is a plus
• Knowledge or Arabic language is a strong advantage

2. Behavioural Competencies:

These are personal qualities that influence how successful people are in their job. NRC’s Competency Framework states 12 behavioural competencies, the following are essential for this position:

• Handling insecure environments
• Strategic thinking
• Empowering and building trust
• Influencing
• Initiating action and change
• Analysing