Position: Research and Learning Coordinator
Reports to: Research and Impact Manager
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Deadline: 9th September 2022
Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa is a high-profile initiative originally developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and the Indian Education NGO Pratham to promote evidence-informed education programming in Africa. TaRL Africa, now headquartered in Kenya, works to improve basic reading and arithmetic skills of children on the African continent through the TaRL approach. We aim to reach 3 million children in the next five years. Key countries of operation include Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Zambia where we work on contextualizing the TaRL approach .
Summary of the Role:
Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa seeks to recruit a Research and Learning Coordinator to support the research, learning and evidence generation for the TaRL Programme in Africa. This role provides an excellent opportunity to be part of a leading evidence-based initiative tackling low learning levels as well as gain first-hand field management experience in an organization undertaking cutting-edge development research.
The Research and Learning Coordinator will supervise several concurrent research projects on behalf of the Research Manager and study Principal Investigators (PIs). They will oversee a set of defined research activities for TaRL programs in several countries. This includes working with the research team to brainstorm, select and implement new research projects based on TaRL Africa’s Learning Agenda. The coordinator will design and manage research and pilot activities applying quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method approaches. The R&L Coordinator will also support existing research and learning activities, including at least one large-scale Randomized Controlled Trial.
The role will be based in Kenya, with regular travel within Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria.
Major Duties and Responsibilities
1. Lead operations of at least one large scale, complex RCT end-to-end:
- Manage subcontractor deliverables including timeline, budget and quality deliverables
- Facilitate communication between TaRL Africa, survey firm, implementing partners, and research PIs
2. Manage and lead scoping, designing and testing of innovative research and learning concepts:
- Design pilot assessment and monitoring systems
- Oversee and support pilot implementation including training of stakeholders
- Train and supervise enumerators on data collection
- Monitor pilot process and providing periodic reports
- Analyze, report and disseminate pilot outcomes
- Support design of potential rigorous evaluations
3. Support rigorous qualitative and quantitative research studies’ design and roll-out:
- Lead and manage TaRL Research Associates in developing instruments for each round of data collection and digitizing data collection instruments
- Supervise data collection and entry to ensure quality of the data at each stage
- Create the necessary databases for analyses
- Assist with data cleaning and preliminary data analysis
- Training enumerators on data collection instruments
- Overseeing data collection, and ensuring that it complies with standards for data quality
- Monitoring the quality of the implementation of interventions
- Assisting with applications to local and international institutional review boards
4. For new research activities requiring support from external survey firms, manage the external survey firms’ engagement from tendering to project finalization
5. Work in close collaboration with the research team and partner organizations to track overall progress on the project and ensure adherence to timelines and the project-plan
6. Provide support on preparing research proposals, design, survey implementation and monitoring, data management, report writing and dissemination and policy outreach
7. Substantively contribute to learning team meetings and brainstorming on other TaRL Africa research projects
8. Creatively communicate research lessons and results with the TaRL community and more broadly (e.g., through blogs, podcasts, newsletters, etc.).
9. Mentor Research Associates and Assistants in the organization.
10. Liaise with academics, officials, policymakers, donors, partner organizations and other organizations; and represent TaRL Africa in meetings and conferences.
11. Maintain clear lines of communication with Principle Investigators (PIs), Managers and the Directors.
12. Other tasks that are assigned by Measurement, Learning and Evaluation Director, Research and Impact Manager, and PIs.
Profile
Required Minimum Qualifications:
- A Master’s degree in economics, social sciences, public policy, or related fields.
- A minimum of four years of experience working in a similar research-focused position.
- Excellent management and organizational skills along with strong quantitative skills.
- Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and a team player.
- Demonstrated ability to effectively manage high-level relationships with partner organizations and external researchers.
- Knowledge of Stata (strongly preferred) or other data analysis software such as R is preferred.
- Practical familiarity with randomized controlled trials strongly preferred.
- Excellent communication skills in English, including writing, conversing and presenting.
- Attention to detail and a commitment to excellence.
- Openness to learn, active curiosity, and critical thinking skills applied to solve problems.
- Strong interpersonal skills with cross-cultural teams.
- Desire to help improve learning outcomes for students at scale.
- Experience working in the education sector.
- Excellent communication skills in French, including writing, conversing and presenting.
- Willingness to travel frequently and flexibly.
How to apply?
Please fill in APPLICATION by 9th September 2022. Only applications submitted through the form will be accepted. Please note that, due to the large volume of applications, we will only be able to respond to short-listed applicants.
TaRL Africa is an equal opportunity employer and committed to having a diverse workforce.
