Open Positions – Central Square Foundation

Central Square Foundation: Founded in 2012, Central Square Foundation (CSF) is a non-profit philanthropic foundation that enables quality school education for all children in India. CSF is driven by our mission to transform the school education system, focusing on improving children’s learning outcomes, especially in low-income communities.

We believe that ensuring Universal, Early, Conceptual and Procedural Mastery of Foundational Literacy & Numeracy (FLN) is essential for the overall success of every child, the education system, and society. To achieve this, we partner with social impact organisations and individuals to bring innovative solutions to education and work with the government to drive systemic impact.

In addition, we collaborate with the ecosystem to leverage knowledge, build evidence and create proven perspectives, methods, processes, and tools. Apart from supporting FLN at national and state government levels,, our work encompasses Early Childhood Education, EdTech, and Affordable Private Schools.

1. Head of Research, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (RMEL)

CSF’s Research, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (RMEL) function:

The Research, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (RMEL) team works with programmatic teams, implementing partners, and State governments to support and build evidence on CSF’s thematic work. Through our efforts, we ensure that our programs take a data and evidence-based approach so that we have a better understanding of what works (and doesn’t), learn from them, and course correct, as necessary.

We help operationalise rigorous, independent impact evaluations for CSF-supported foundational learning and EdTech programs. This includes quantitative and qualitative measurements of student learning outcomes, classroom practices, and policy analyses. Our impact evaluation engagement includes techno-managerial oversight of a large-scale impact and process evaluation of foundation learning programs, with a baseline sample size of over 4,500 students spanning two states.

We advise internal teams like our Classroom Instruction & Practices, Early Childhood Education & EdTech teams to conduct rapid-cycle action research and efficacy studies that can inform program/product design and adoption and scale-up by governments.

Our recent work includes a randomised assignment dipstick study to measure the effectiveness of an educational video platform, a rigorous summative study of a child and parent-facing EdTech platform, and a situational analysis of early childhood education delivery across five states.

We also work closely with our state-facing project management units to operationalise and build state capacity to conduct large-scale student learning assessments to diagnose system-wide learning gaps. The RMEL team contributed to baseline studies on student learning results under NIPUN Bharat across multiple states, offering support on sampling and data analysis.

We also develop public goods like research playbooks, templates for field data collection, analysis protocols, position papers, and blogs to strengthen the education research ecosystem.

We collaborate in research studies and professional mentorships with eminent researchers and institutions, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, RISE Initiative, JPAL, IIT-Bombay, and Educational Initiatives.

Head of RMEL Position Summary: 

This is an exciting role to build a world-class RMEL capability at CSF with the potential to significantly impact the state of evidence in the early learning domain in India and LMICs. You will play a key role in ensuring that programs and interventions are rigorously evaluated for efficacy and informed by actionable insights emerging from research on learning outcomes, pedagogy, behaviour science, and education technology. You will lead a small team of 3-4 M&E specialists with research design and field implementation abilities. You will also draw on other CSF teams’ expertise in classroom practices, assessment, and governance. You will be the critical interface for the global research community, evaluation agencies, and implementing partners. Specifically, you will be expected to:

Design, Quality Assure and Execute research and evaluation agenda across critical programs:

• Conceptualise and design high-quality, rigorous studies answering research questions with policy relevance, including impact evaluation of CSF-supported scaled programs and action-research projects to pilot test new hypotheses and program designs
• Quality-assure research outputs, including research questions, tools, protocols, and analysis findings by bringing in methodological rigour and operational feasibility
• Pursue original research projects and publish in influential peer-reviewed publications (either as a lead author or in partnership with other researchers) and conference proceedings, with editorial and analytical support from the team.
• Disseminate policy-relevant communications, conduct workshops, and author op-ed pieces to influence government policymakers, education domain influencers and implementation partners.

Ensure productive collaboration with CSF internal teams and external stakeholders to ensure alignment of research agenda and utilisation:

• Influence CSF’s technical implementation partners and external evaluators on establishing research agendas, communication of outputs, and ensuring the adoption of findings
• Collaborate with other CSF teams to provide technical solutions to their M&E needs while drawing on their domain expertise to inform RMEL’s work.
• Support CSF leadership and board with regularly monitoring CSF programmes, including defining success metrics, data, dashboards, and insights.
• Liaise with external stakeholders, including donors, research advisory boards, external research agencies, and government policymakers
• Recruit, retain, and manage a high-performing team by setting clear goals, delegating workstreams, and ensuring high-outcome orientation.
• Actively build internal capabilities and support team members by sharing learnings, providing feedback, and ensuring their training and development.

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities:

We seek an exceptional research professional with deep experience researching education programs, generating actionable insights, and how data/evaluation can improve decision-making.

Education & Work Experience: 
Doctorate (preferred) or a Research Master’s from a reputable institution in a relevant field, including econometrics, public policy, education, psychology, statistics, or a related domain, with a solid understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, tools, and software.

Preferably 10+ years experience in a senior techno-managerial role at a reputed evaluation agency, M&E function of an implementing organisation, or an academic research institution designing and administering multiple rigorous impact evaluation and research studies in the social sector (preferably with exposure to k-12 school education).

Domain Knowledge and Technical Skills: 

• Expertise in research methodologies and techniques, including quantitative (experimental & quasi-experimental methods) and qualitative (survey & observational) approaches. Educational assessment design and psychometrics (IRT) expertise will be considered a strong plus.
• Strong analytical skills include applying first-principles thinking, asking the right questions, drawing inferences, questioning accepted wisdom, and generating alternative approaches.
• Pragmatic solutions ability to construct fit-for-purpose studies balancing research design standards and constraints of on-ground program implementation
• Experience in conducting field research in remote locations within challenging on-ground logistics and operational contexts
• Intellectual leadership, including technical publications in leading peer-reviewed journals, conference presentations, and policy-relevant communications.
• Ability to communicate persuasively, both orally and in writing, with policymakers, researchers, and external audiences

Interpersonal and Managerial Abilities:

• Planning and execution skills, including the ability to set priorities, plan timelines, hold others accountable, and meet deadlines.
• Hands-on,  pragmatic, and resourceful working style suited to a small agile organisation
• Ability to collaborate and actively listen to others, understanding and valuing alternative views
• Ability to build relationships with and influence external stakeholders, including
• CSF teams, evaluation agencies, technical partners, and government stakeholders.

Compensation: Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and will depend upon the candidate’s experience levels. We kindly request that you carefully read the entire job description before applying to ensure it aligns with your skills, experience, and career aspirations.

Apply
Interested candidates are required to click on the “Apply” button on this link

2. Consultant, Public Governance

Location: Sitapur or Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh

Position Summary
The Public Governance team at CSF aims to build government capabilities to enable improved learning outcomes at scale and in a sustainable manner. We intend to achieve this by helping governments design and implement interventions that address local problems, conducting research initiatives on critical issues and contributing to national and global discourses at the intersection of education, policy, and governance. The team along with its partner – Centre for Social and Behaviour Change at Ashoka University – is leading the design and implementation of a behaviour change intervention pilot in Uttar Pradesh. The Consultant, Public Governance will be expected to work out of a district (Sitapur or Hardoi) in Uttar Pradesh, lead various work streams under the pilot and ensure smooth implementation of the pilot on-ground.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to

• Building strong relationships with key government stakeholders (District/ block officials and schools) to strengthen the implementation of the project
• Managing the implementation and operations of the project by coordinating with the
  government to get permissions for project activities
• Conducting qualitative research through facilitating interviews, workshops and FGDs
  with target stakeholders and analysing data to draw insights
• Prototyping interventions in the field to gain user insights and iterate on design and
  implementation plans
• Supporting, supervising and monitoring the data collection activities such as co-ordinating data requests from districts for sample selection, training the data collection agency and monitoring and supervising the surveys
• Monitoring the implementation of interventions on-ground and conducting classroom
  observations during the deployment period
• Supporting the project team in drafting key documents, reports, presentations and other communication collaterals for key stakeholders and in disseminating the insights

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities

• Bachelors or Masters degree in a relevant field (e.g economics, behavioural and social
  sciences, management, public policy, education etc) from a reputed institute
• At least 2 to 4 years of work experience
• Prior experience working with government stakeholders
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to manage stakeholders effectively to incorporate competing points of view
• Extremely high analytical, synthesis, and problem-solving abilities
• Good research, writing skills, and communication skills. Ability to analyse qualitative and quantitative data, craft possible solutions and recommend actions
• Strong project management skills, including the ability to deliver high-quality outputs in a short period of time
• High level of flexibility and responsiveness with the ability to shift priorities quickly and as project demands
• Demonstrated history of working independently and delivering results with limited
  support and supervision
• Entrepreneurial spirit and ‘can-do’ attitude
• Comfortable with frequent travel and field work
• Proficient with speaking and reading Hindi

Compensation and Tenure
Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and will depend upon the candidate’s experience levels.

This will be a 12-month contract role based in one of the districts (Sitapur or Hardoi) in Uttar Pradesh where the project will be conducted.

Apply
Interested candidates are required to click on the “Apply” button on this link