Director, Academics - New Opportunities ( Bilingual French and English Speaking) at NewGlobe

About the Role

• The Academic Director will be ultimately responsible for educational outcomes across schools, and will serve as an individual contributor, collaborator and a manager in this role. As an individual contributor, the Academic Director will project manage all academic events and initiatives for the territory. This will include the implementation of cyclical events (eg. provision and maintenance of a school and academic calendar, daily and weekly timetables) and any new learning innovation launched throughout the academic year. 
• As a collaborator, the Academic Director will be responsible for coordinating with Shared Services Instructional Design and Learning Innovation to ensure that all levers of achievement are robust and contextualized for the programme. The Academic Director will work with other departments to ensure that all schools have the right operational conditions for learning to take place.

What You Will Do

• Advocating for learning outcomes and serving as an in-country academic consultant for other departments
• Leading execution and interdepartmental coordination of the core academic program
• Providing feedback to the Instructional Design team, in order to improve learning outcomes and culturally contextualize what is taught
• Representing the territory with key state stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education and other government education officials
• Conducting necessary market and regulatory research to inform instructional systems and policies (timetable, teacher specialty configurations, retention policies, exam policy, placement policy)
• Identify areas of growth within our Academic offerings and create programmes/policies that improve student learning and school operation.

What You Should Have

• The Academic Director must be a data-driven individual with experience developing and managing cultures of high performance and high expectations. You must be a great academic leader who understands exceptional instruction and can motivate and support others in realizing a vision of academic excellence. Ideal candidates have worked in organizations with a proven track record of generating large learning gains.

In addition, the Academic Director must:

• Be a self-starter and problem-solver, who thinks three and four steps ahead.
• Be hard working and collaborative, with the tenacity to plow through challenges and an appreciation for teamwork toward achieving a shared vision.
• Be a fast learner and someone who is able to flourish in fast paced, dynamic, and sometimes ambiguous environments.
• Be both detailed and results-oriented, driven by the data that will allow us to know what is working and what isn’t working for kids.
• Have strong project management skills and excellent organizational skills, with keen attention to detail and ability to follow up systematically on a broad set of initiatives and decisions.
• Be an effective, articulate communicator who can represent the programme to external audiences.
• Be humble, ready to “roll up your sleeves” to get things done.

Education and qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Education or related field, graduate degrees preferred.
• 10 years’ experience working in education. 
• 2 or more years of teaching experience with evidence of outsized student learning gains is an added advantage.
• Experience working in the education sector.

You’re also

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
• A networking mastermind – You excel at meeting new people and turning them into advocates.  You communicate in a clear, conscientious, and effective way in both written and oral speech. You can influence strangers in the course of a single conversation. Allies and colleagues will go to bat for your ideas. You have an existing network in Nigeria from prior experience in the country, preferably in the regulatory, education, or business sectors.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, NewGlobe works in often fragile, sometimes volatile low-resource communities and with complex government systems. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.
• A relentless advocate –The children we serve and teachers we empower never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like.  Every decision you make considers their benefit, experience,
• and value.
• A malleable learner –You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others.  You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.
• A curious investigator – You ask why a lot. You don’t just take what you see and accept it. You wonder why it is that way, and are aware that the world we see is created by human choices and actions – and it could be different. You wonder, and see the world as wonderful even when you want to change a part of it that is unjust.