Associate Director, Program Development & M&E – 321 Education Foundation

321 Education Foundation Around 130 million school-going children in India study in primary grades. But, 7 out of 10 children have not attained the foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills required for success in higher studies. As a result, they cannot advance as productive citizens of the country. We aim to ensure the attainment of foundational learning outcomes for over half a million children by 2025.

Position-related Quick Information

Flexible work system:

• 5 days workweek
• Few days of on-field in-city & across-city travel as per the needs (every 2-3 months); remaining days & off-field time is work from home with flexible hours
• Bi-weekly in-person workday in the city

Joining: ASAP

Compensation: ₹ 1,20,000/- to ₹ 1,50,000/- per month based on skill set & experience (additional reimbursements)

321’s mission is to transform India’s education system by maximising the potential of each educator and school and, through them, the potential of millions of children in our country. In the next 5 years, 321 Education Foundation aims to ensure that children from marginalised backgrounds attain the foundational literacy & numeracy (FLN) skills critical for succeeding in the future. Since our inception, we have impacted 300,000 students & 25,000 teachers across 2000 schools through various initiatives.

Our current program, PARaM, builds the capacities of all stakeholders in the school for students of grades 1 to 5 to deliver and sustain improved learning outcomes in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). PARaM stands on the four pillars of Prepare, Assess, Remediate and Motivate – to deliver student learning outcomes.

With PARaM, 321 is at a pivotal stage of its growth with a mission to improve FLN skills for over half a million Indian children in Grades 1 to 5 by 2025 & set them on a path to economic advancement.

Position Summary

• The Associate Director, Program Development & M&E will conceptualize, plan & run programs end to end.
• They will be instrumental in designing delightful solutions, experiences and enabling quality delivery at scale to thousands of teachers & students for 321’s program PARaM; while managing & coaching 2-3 team members of Program Development and M&E.
• They will ensure that our teachers seamlessly receive world-class online courses & resources that are visually appealing, interactive, engaging, and delivered effectively.
• They will deeply understand the educators’ challenges and collaboratively solve them with the Program Implementation team.

Areas of Responsibility

• Conceptualize, plan & run programs end to end, including understanding & working on the program’s cost, anticipating & envisaging issues and planning accordingly, while communicating regularly with senior leadership.
• Create tools to enable best-in-class FLN learning outcomes for students across hundreds of schools in the country. The core tools to be designed could include (but are not limited to) the following:
• Synchronous online/in-person sessions & learning experiences for teachers.
• Teaching and Learning material (worksheets, classroom display materials, etc.).
• Additional Support Material (documents, posters, research summaries, data outcome sheets, etc.) for 321’s
• Implementation team members and partner educators to impact their students positively.
• Develop & design learning content in various engaging formats, such as courses, simulations, games, videos, quizzes, worksheets, etc., to serve the learning goals, style & pace of primary grade teachers working in underserved communities in India.
• Analyse problems educators face and identify opportunities for program PARaM to help solve them by working closely with them and the Implementation team members to understand the needs of students, teachers, and school leaders, iterate solutions quickly, evaluate the effectiveness of the program and conduct pilots.
• Incorporate changes and feedback to courses & other deliverables in a timely manner.
• Be deeply involved in monitoring and evaluation through data analysis and review.
• Manage and coach 2-3 team members to equip them for success while also overseeing & managing external parties (consultants, freelancers, etc.) for the creation of various asynchronous digital content (courses, simulations, games, videos, quizzes, worksheets, etc.) for teachers & students.

Who we are looking for

An ideal candidate will:

• Have 12-15 years of work experience with achieving results in the mentioned areas of responsibilities.
• Have in-depth knowledge of what works in Teaching & Learning, learning principles and instructional design models for adult learning: They should know historical best practices as well as enjoy studying new research, engaging with new methods of teaching & learning, and keeping abreast of the latest to understand where the world is going in the future.
• Be passionate: about student learning and the idea of empowering educators to achieve it, and about developing & designing courses & digital resources that resonate so much with teachers that our courses go viral and attract teachers to seek more of our courses.
• Be focused on the end-user while delivering high-quality outputs within tight deadlines.
• Have strong familiarity working with design tools & audio/video editing – Articulate 360, Photoshop/Canva, Powerpoint/Slides, etc.
• Be competent in data processes to make quick, pragmatic, long-term decisions.
• Be able to manage & coach people well.
• Be aligned with 321’s Mission and Culture: An obsession with excellence and strong attention to detail are imperative for this work. We are looking for someone with the judgment and maturity to gracefully handle the various uncertainties and challenges that come our way and take the initiative to address these effectively while still performing at high levels of excellence.

What’s in it for you

• Be a part of the leadership team that designs and executes growth and scale-up strategies for the org and its programs.
• Contribute to the growth of an exceptional team on a mission to solve the FLN crisis in the country: Lead the drive to scale up 321’s program exponentially in the next 3-5 years and, through that, impact students, teachers, and school leaders, parents & other influential stakeholders in the education sector.
• Participate in, learn about & drive the organization’s journey to a nationwide scale-up.
• Stellar team: Be part of & learn from a diverse, high-caliber & high-performing collaborative team.
• Experience thoughtful, productive & joyful work systems. Learn from & contribute to the organization’s distinctive culture & exemplary work environment.
• Growth path options: Grow in your role by taking on bigger projects & responsibilities or exploring other roles in 321’s program team.

Application process

If there is a fit, especially with areas of responsibility & who we are looking for sections, then email your resume to nandita.shetty@321-foundation.org

Subsequent rounds include 3 assignments, 3-4 video interviews & 2 reference calls.