Measurement, Learning, and Evaluation (MLE) Associate at Teaching at the Right Level Africa

Role Purpose

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa seeks an MLE Associate to support the design and implementation of measurement and monitoring strategies for our TaRL programs across countries. The associate will work with partners and country teams to coordinate and streamline data collection; analyze data; and establish feedback, review and reporting structures. In addition to this, the associate will lead/ support nimble learning studies to unpack, adapt, and improve aspects of TaRL programming.

This role provides an excellent opportunity for individuals who are motivated to use data to improve the learning outcomes of children globally, especially Africa. 

Major roles and responsibilities

Provide oversight to the country teams to develop a robust program measurement, monitoring and review strategy: An effective measurement, monitoring and review strategy is crucial for creating strong localized TaRL programs that are embedded within existing government systems. The MLE team works closely with the program and content teams to provide regular feedback to government and partners from TaRL implementation. They also build their capacity to understand and use data for immediate course corrections.  

• Understand the program objectives and different stakeholder needs to support the country MLE associates and partners in designing tools/ processes for data collection, verification, mentoring, and review, and in building the capacity of government and TaRL Africa teams on data use.
• Support country teams on analyzing program data and sharing key insights with government stakeholders, partners and TaRL Africa Central team on the successes, challenges, lessons learnt and highlight areas that require urgent attention.
• Develop a strong understanding of governments’ existing measurement and monitoring systems in TaRL Africa’s directly supported countries and undertake efforts to embed TaRL data systems into the government systems.
• Regularly assess the technical capacity of country M&M associates and conduct workshops on data analysis, visualization, dissemination, and other technical aspects as necessary.

Lead/ Support scoping, designing, and testing nimble learning/ deep-dive study ideas: TaRL Africa believes in adaptive learning and course-correction of programs in the pursuit of making the TaRL programs more effective and owned by governments. In addition to rigorous research and evaluations to build on the already strong evidence for TaRL, we regularly conduct nimble learning studies to better unpack program challenges and identify ways to strengthen.

• Design pilot assessment and monitoring systems
• Oversee and support pilot implementation including training of stakeholders
• Provide contextual knowledge, make field plans to implement learning activities on the ground
• Train and supervise enumerators/ country teams on data collection
• Monitor pilot process and providing periodic reports;
• Analyze, report and disseminate pilot outcomes to government, partners and internal teams.

Miscellaneous

• Support the rigorous research activities as needed, including literature reviews, 
• Creatively communicate program lessons and results with the TaRL community and more broadly (e.g., through blogs, articles, podcasts, newsletters).
• Keep abreast of government policies, recent initiatives/ programs in the countries directly supporting
• Support other tasks as assigned by the line manager

Education and Qualifications

• Minimum qualification: A Bachelor degree and 2 years of work experience as an analyst or similar positions with an analytical bent. Applicants from for-profit/ consulting background looking to switch to the social sector for creating impact are also welcome to apply.
• Excellent data analysis skills
•  Ability to think analytically and critically, keeping the big picture in mind
• Experience working with data manipulation software, including data collection, analysis & visualization platforms (Required: Excel; Strongly preferred: Tableau, Power BI, Stata)
• Excellent communication skills in English, including writing, conversing, and presenting
• Self-starter with an attitude to get the job done
• Strong interpersonal skills with cross-cultural teams
• Passionate about improving children’s learning using data
• Willingness to travel frequently and flexibly within Africa, especially in remote rural areas

Preferred

•     Experience working in the development and/or the education sector in Africa
•     Experience working with government departments
•     Familiarity with French
•     Previous experience of building data systems for similar mission-driven organisations
•     Familiarity with econometric and program evaluation techniques
•     Familiarity with national and regional learning assessments
•     Strong preference for Kenyan Nationals

Deadline: 19th April 2023