Inclusive Quality Education Advisor

Plan works for girls rights. Harmful barriers like child marriage, human trafficking and gender-based violence are preventing girls and young women from achieving their full potential. Plan, along with government and private partners, fights against harmful gender norms and empowers young people to create positive change in their communities. We have worked in communities for more than 80 years and provide locally-driven programming through 240 offices around the world.

Plan International USA is fully committed to the safeguarding of all children and young people from all forms of violence.

The Inclusive Quality Education (IQE) Advisor will work as a member of the Education team and will provide technical support to donor-funded early grade reading and adolescent girls education programming. The IQE Advisor will also be responsible for supporting Plan s position as a leader in girls education overall through research and documentation efforts, and representing Plan at internal and external sector meetings and events. S/he will also contribute to positioning, technical design and development of project proposals for US government, foundations, corporates and individual donors.

There are more than 132 million girls out of school around the world. Plan USA is particularly interested in an IQE Advisor who works toward breaking down the multiple potential barriers to girls education, including but not limited to, factors such as the cost of education, distance to school, gender norms around water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) access for girls, violence, early marriage and pregnancy, and poverty.

Essential Functions:

Technical Support to Country Office Teams and Programs

• Provide technical leadership and backstopping to multi-year, international donor-funded projects from USAID, foundations, corporates like Kimberly-Clark and individuals, including providing technical and project management support primarily in the areas of early grade reading and adolescent girls education;
• Collaborate with Plan Country Offices to design innovative education projects, identify professional education staff for implementation, and document project-related learning, effective practices and program impact;
• Ensure excellent project reporting and technical deliverables aligned with donor requirements and which contribute to Plan s global inclusive education expertise;
• Review program budgets and financial reports to ensure they align with technical work plans;
• Identifies project monitoring and evaluation needs on field programs and works with the M&E team in developing M&E action plans, and supporting the documentation of effective practices and program impacts related to Plan programs and learning;
• Promotes program quality by identifying technical needs of field programs, and coordinating the necessary technical assistance;
• Represents Plan to donors, colleagues, agencies, government, foundations and the private sector when requested.

New Business and Proposal Development

• Lead technical design of proposals for USG, foundations, corporations, individual philanthropists, including technical inputs for Plan s adolescent girls fundraising campaign in collaboration with country office technical experts;
• Support business development and fundraising teams to cultivate new donors; identify potential business opportunities and develop responsive proposals on early grade reading, parent and community engagement and programs that address the barriers to education for adolescent girls, including menstrual hygiene management.
• Actively participate in proposal development for multi-year proposals for education.

Representation and Dissemination

• Represents Plan s IQE team and share program results and innovations at internal and external events, conferences and working groups;
• Participates in Plan s Global IQE network to share best practices, inform Plan s global IQE frameworks and learn of best practices and tools used across Plan offices.

Skills and Competencies:

• Understanding of the challenges facing adolescent girls access to quality education and best programmatic practices to mitigate those challenges, especially at the transition from primary to secondary;
• Experience and understanding of key USAID education policies and frameworks related to early grade reading, girls education and inclusion;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills;
• Ability to write successful proposals and generate new business from USG (especially USAID), foundations, corporate partners and/or individuals;
• Able to effectively deliver engaging conference presentations to colleagues, donors and peers within the industry;
• Strong budgeting experience and ability to create activity budgets that align with program work plans;
• Experience in and/or excellent understanding of gender transformative programming;
• Ability and willingness to travel at least 20% of the time to designated countries (following Plan s COVID protocols);
• Demonstrated capabilities as a team play and ability to work with a range of donors and stakeholders;
• Fluency in English required; fluency in Portuguese, Spanish or French strongly desired.

Education and Experience:

• Minimum five to seven years of international experience in the related technical fields of early grade reading, adolescent girls education, menstrual hygiene management, participatory youth engagement and inclusion;
• Masters degree or higher in education, international development, social sciences preferred;
• Overseas project experience or residency in a developing country preferred.

Other Duties

This job description does not contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time.

Plan is an equal opportunity employer and follows all laws associated with the EEOC.