Education Specialist (Information Management & Policy Support)

UNICEF has been working in Liberia for close to 30 years, turning our vision for children into practical action.

With our child-focused mandate, country presence and operational capacity, we support the Government of Liberia and other partners to help every child reach their full potential.

The goal of our current country programme for 2013-2019 is to:

Make sure that every child and adolescent has access to basic education and a variety of post-basic education and improved learning outcomes.
Improve the health, nutrition and welfare of children and women on an equitable basis.
Increase access to the basics of life – safe water, sanitation and hygiene
Protect the poorest and most vulnerable children and women from all forms of violence.
Our interventions are supported by a robust monitoring and evaluation system that helps us track and improve results for children. Behaviour change communication is a key strategy across all our programmes, while advocacy and resource mobilization ensure that policies and funding are in place to bring about positive change for children in Liberia.

The UNV will support UNICEF Liberia in the provision of technical support to the education sector generally and specifically, to the development and implementation of the Information Management System (EMIS). The purpose of providing support to EMIS and implementation of related interventions is to strengthen evidence-based policy development, implementation and sector coordination. The education sector in Liberia faces many challenges including poor access, with approximately 50% of the children out of school. These are mostly adolescent girls who also face many social cultural barriers and widespread gender-based violence; the sector is faced with poor learning outcomes and an education system that has been affected by a decade of civil conflict, pandemics including the Ebola and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic. The education system is faced by challenges including low human and institutional capacity. A key challenge is the lack of data for education planning. Only two school annual school censuses have been conducted since 2015, creating challenges for accurate planning. This assignment will support UNICEF assistance to the Ministry of Education (MOE) in the development and implementation of the education information management system to support planning, policy advocacy and reporting.
The following is a summary of key tasks and functions:
• Technical support for the programme to lead the development and implementation of information management systems for education programme advocacy, development and planning.
• Programme management, monitoring and delivery of results including institutional partnerships and grant management.
• Technical and operational support for evidence-driven, quality programme implementation to integrate and harness information management or the education response including data collection, analysis, storage, use and dissemination.
• Education sector networking and partnership building.
• Innovations in education including integration of digital learning and related technologies, knowledge management and capacity building.

Reporting to the Chief of Education, the UNV EMIS and Policy Support Specialist will collaborate closely with the Ministries of Education and Youth and Sports as well as major Development Partners most especially the EU, World Bank, UNESCO and UNIDO to ensure the successful implementation of education information management systems, through technical support management for capacity enhancement in this area, improved intergovernmental processes and partner relations.

Within the delegated authority and under the supervision of Chief of Education, the UNV EMIS and Policy Support specialist will undertake the following summary tasks and functions:

1. Provide support to programme development and planning with specific reference to education information management systems and conduct of research for evidence-based policy advocacy and development.

• Oversee UNICEF technical support to the design and implementation of a robust Education information management architecture (EMIS and Annual School Census) for collecting and analysing data from different sources. This includes partner development of analytical frameworks complying to global standards; integrating Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) indicators from multi-sector sources; establishment and implementation of data governance standards and data collection tools to ensure data quality, integrity, compliance and consistency across all data systems including partner generated data.

• Contribute to the preparation and updating of the situation analysis for the development, design, and management of education related programmes/projects. Research and report on development trends (economic, social, health etc.) and data for use in programme development, management, monitoring, evaluation and delivery of results.

• Contribute to the development and establishment of Education programme goals, objectives and strategies and results-based planning through research, collection, analysis and reporting of education and other related information for development planning and goal setting.

• Provide technical and administrative support throughout all stages of programming processes by executing and administering a variety of technical programme transactions, preparing materials and documentations, and complying with organizational processes and management systems, to support programme planning, results-based planning (RBM) and monitoring and evaluation of results.

2. Programme management, monitoring and delivery of results including grant management:

• Work closely and collaboratively with internal colleagues and external partners to collect, analyse and share information on implementation issues. Support both internal and external management of the education management information systems research and evaluation portfolio: Specifically develop management, and monitoring tools for effective implementation of information management systems; support coordination between key implementation parties; support reporting mechanism and maintain regular reporting mechanism among partners.

• Specifically provide administrative and management support to the EU funded Education information Management grant: provide management support to related contracts/partnerships; conduct relevant monitoring; support grant management including the provision of data and statistics for all grant management and reporting needs.

• Suggest solutions on routine education programme implementation and submit reports to alert appropriate officials and stakeholders for higher-level intervention and/or decisions. Keep record of reports and assessments for easy reference and/or to capture and institutionalize lessons learned.

• Monitor the use of sectoral programme resources (financial, administrative and other assets), verify compliance with approved allocation, organizational rules, regulations/procedures and donor commitments, standards of accountability and integrity. Report on issues identified to ensure timely resolution by management/stakeholders. Follow up on unresolved issues to ensure resolution.

• Prepare draft inputs for programme/donor reporting. Participate in monitoring and evaluation exercises, conduct programmatic monitoring visits, programme reviews and annual sectoral reviews with government and other counterparts and prepare minutes/reports on results for follow up action by higher management and other stakeholders.

3. Provide technical and operational support to programme implementation to integrate and harness information management including data collection, analysis, storage, use and dissemination.

• Assist in strategic and operational decision-making by coordinating the government counterparts from line ministries and relevant development partners in ensuring quality and availability of educational data. Technical support provision in the development of an analytical framework and subsequently support to capacity building, data collection, processing and analysis.

• Provide technical support to UNICEF, partners and government in the design, implementation, compilation/harmonization, reporting and dissemination of findings of learning assessments at various levels aimed at determining the status of student learning outcomes in Liberia.

• Provide technical support in data presentation and dissemination in the formats most useful for utilization by government and partners including appropriate visualization and mapping technologies.

• Undertake field visits and surveys and share information with stakeholders to assess progress and refer to relevant officials for resolution. Report on critical issues, bottlenecks and potential problems for timely action to achieve results.

4. Networking and partnership building

• Provide support to the education section in building and sustain effective close working partnerships with and between government counterparts, development partners and national stakeholders through active sharing of information and knowledge to facilitate programme implementation and build capacity of stakeholders to achieve and sustain results on education programmes. To specifically support collaboration between MOE and the Ministry of Youth on the education information management systems and related vocational technical training interventions.

• Work in close collaboration with communication section to provide content updates for UNICEF and donor visibility. Specifically support advocacy agenda for the EU/EMIS funded project aimed at improving the visibility of TVET and legislative frameworks. Draft communication and information materials for CO programme advocacy to promote awareness, establish partnerships and alliances, and support fund raising for education programmes.

• Participate in and manage UNICEF inter-agency collaboration including joint programming, advocacy, coordination, meetings and events on programming to collaborate with inter-agency partners on planning and preparation of education programmes/projects. To specifically support ongoing and planned inter-agency collaboration on EMIS with UNIDO/UNESCO and on Adolescent Girls with UNFPA with the view to integrate and harmonize strategies. To also manage the major development partner contributors to the EMIS portfolio including the World Bank and the USAID supported systems strengthening Agency (ESSA).

• Research information on potential donors and prepare resource mobilization materials and briefs for fund raising and partnership development purposes.

5. Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

. Contribute to evidence-based policy development, advocacy through the conduct of operational and/or implementation research. Through the above, to support testing of innovative approaches, identifying, capturing, synthesizing, and sharing lessons learned for knowledge generation and capacity development of stakeholders. To specifically support a Community of Practice on Evidence generation (COP+E) constituting a partnership of the academia, policy makers and practitioners.

. Provide support to ongoing educational innovations including the implementation of two digital learning platforms: a radio-based platform that supports home based learning and learning continuity; and the Learning Passport Initiative (LP) to support blended learning. The position will also support school based real time information management systems all aimed at strengthening learning continuity systems, learning effectiveness as well as child level monitoring.

. Participate as a resource person in capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of clients/stakeholders. To specifically build capacity on information management tools and data analysis processes for education sector partners to enhance their knowledge and skills to effectively undertake education data collection, analysis and presentation.