Education Specialist

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programmes, in advocacy and in operations.  UNICEF supports the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action.  In Education, this means reducing learning inequality and ensuring that all children can realize their right to education.  To achieve this in Jordan, UNICEF focuses on increasing access to basic education for children from 5 to 18, as well as improving learning outcomes.  

The Education Specialist will play a key role in bringing innovation to the development and preparation of education programmes, including programmes related to Syria Crisis in the camps. The Education Specialist provides authoritative technical guidance and operational support throughout all stages of programming to facilitate the management and delivery of results on strengthening national education systems to improve learning outcomes, especially for children who are marginalized, disadvantaged and excluded in society.

To achieve this, the Education Specialist will focus on three technical areas; improving teaching professionalism and local level decision making; improving basic literacy and numeracy of refugee children in camps; and creating a sustainable model for Learning Bridges, providing learning recovery and progression for one million children from Grade 4 to 9 through schools and community organizations.

1. Improve teacher professionalism and local level decision making through advice to MOE and technical support to system strengthening. 

• Provide technical advice to MOE on policies, strategies, best practices and approaches on teacher development and career pathways, to include introduction and piloting of teacher standards and accredited teacher professional development, using PROSPECTS funding.

• Participate in strategic discussions to influence policy and agenda setting on teaching and learning engaging government and donor partners.

1. Create a sustainable model for Learning Bridges enabling 1 million children attending Grade 4 to 9 to progress in their learning

• Support the Curriculum Department/MOE to develop and implement Learning Bridges, including weekly activities by grade for the academic year.

• Ensure the successful implementation of a community engagement strategy to create a network of partners to provide homework support to children participating in Learning Bridges, in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Ministry of Social Development.

• Prepare policy papers, briefs and other knowledge products to share the findings, challenges and opportunities arising from implementation of Learning Bridges and other education emergency response programming at the national, regional and global level.

1. Revise the education offer in the Makani Centres to meet the needs of vulnerable in school children with a focus on core grade level learning objectives in basic literacy and numeracy

• Formulate, design and prepare interim plan for update of the education component of the LSS/Makani Centres, including three pillars – reading, update of LSS and implementation of Learning Bridges, in collaboration with other Sections.

• Design and implement diagnostic assessment and use to identify reading challenges of children in camps and HC.  Use to develop a levelled reading program including facilitator training, activities and provision of books to be used to establish Reading Clubs in Makani Centres.

• Design tools to monitor the outcome of reading clubs on children in refugee camps and use to inform future program improvements, funding and knowledge sharing.

4. Programme development, planning and monitoring

• Formulate, design and prepare programme proposals, ensuring alignment with UNICEF’s Strategic Plans and Country Programme, regional strategies and national priorities.

• Design monitoring and evaluation systems to identify gaps, strengths and weaknesses in programme management. Identify and use lessons learned and use knowledge gained for development planning and timely intervention to achieve goals.

• Develop TORs, contract and manage institutional and individual service providers needed to deliver results.

5. Advocacy, networking and partnership building

• Build and strengthen strategic partnerships through networking and advocacy with local/national governments, UN system agency partners, donors, internationally recognized institutions, NGOs, funding organizations, research institutes and private sector to reinforce cooperation and/or pursue opportunities to promote goals and achieve sustainable and broad results on education. 

• Prepare communication strategies and implementation plans and activities for maximum communication impact and outreach to promote awareness, establish partnership/alliances for sustainable results and support fundraising for UNICEF Country Office education programmes and emergency interventions.

6. Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

• Promote critical thinking, innovative approaches and good practices for sustainable education programme initiatives through advocacy and technical advisory services.

• Keep abreast, research, benchmark, introduce and implement best and cutting edge practices on education management and information systems. Institutionalize and disseminate best practices and knowledge learned..

• Organize, plan and implement capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of stakeholders to promote sustainable results on education related programmes/projects.

• An advanced university degree (Master´s Equivalent) in Education is required. A first university degree (Bachelor's equivalent) will be accepted in lieu of the Master´s degree with an additional 2 years of experience.

• A minimum of seven (7) years of professional experience (or more depending on academic credentials) in programme planning, management, and/or research in education is required. or Bachelor's + 9 years of experience.

• Relevant experience in a UN system agency or organization is considered as an asset.

• Experience working in a developing country is considered as an asset.

• Fluency in English is required.  Knowledge of Arabic is considered as an asset.

Contract type: International ICA

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.
Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.