INOVASI 3 - Educational Leadership Specialist

at  Palladium Group Inc

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

The Educational Leadership Specialist will possess the following qualifications and experience:

• A degree in education or other relevant subjects in science, social sciences, international relations, public policy.
• Significant experience in education related development programs which include program design, implementation and related activities, preferably within Indonesia.
• Strong understanding of basic education, educational leadership and soft-skills development, and the challenges and conditions for improving and sustaining quality education.
• Knowledge of the Indonesian education system and significant experience developing the capacity of teachers, principals, supervisors, communities, teacher working groups, local government and/or universities. Experience in being a school/madrasah principal will be highly regarded.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize tasks, manage time and complete projects in a fast-paced, changing environment with minimal supervision.
• Demonstrated ability to seize opportunities and work collaboratively with other teams to achieve shared goals.
• Strong problem-solving skills, interpersonal and communication skills, a positive attitude, and pro-active approach.
• Fluency in Bahasa Indonesia and a good working knowledge of English.

PROJECT OVERVIEW AND ROLE:

Indonesia’s Vision 2045 sets the goal for Indonesia to transition from a resource-based economy towards an advanced service, technology, and knowledge-based economy by the centenary of its independence (2045). The 2025-2045 National Long Term Development Plan emphasises the urgency of Indonesia’s human resource development to fully realise 2045 goals.
Faced however with persistent low student performance that is emblematic of a learning crisis, significant improvement in student learning will be required to reach Indonesia’s 2045 goals. Government of Indonesia (GoI) has started an ambitious program of education reforms. Successive education ministers have set out to modernise the education system through reforming the national curriculum and teaching and assessment approaches, to produce citizens with strong foundational skills, open minds, and inclusive values.
Australia is a long-term supporter of the Indonesian basic education sector, with continuous investments supporting education quality improvements for the past two decades, including through the INOVASI program (Phase 1 2016-2020; Phase 2 2020-2023) that focused on supporting acquisition of literacy and numeracy foundational skills in early grades classrooms; exploring local problems and solutions; and generating evidence to inform government policy development and practices.
This third phase of INOVASI (2024-2027) builds upon the existing program’s approach and lessons learned and takes the focus on the development of foundational skills through to the end of the primary grades. Phase 3 will engage with priority issues of Australia’s development policy: gender equality, effective inclusion of children with a disability, responses to the climate change challenge in education. It will focus on the challenge of policy implementation and the gaps that exist between national policies and practices at district and school levels, and use the well attested-success of INOVASI’s local problem-based approach to continuously support policy development for effective fit between policy and implementation context.
The Program is managed by Palladium on behalf of DFAT.

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION:

The Educational Leadership Specialist has responsibility for supporting subnational and national teams to achieve INOVASI’s intended outcomes through providing technical advice and support to the design, development, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of INOVASI approaches to educational leadership. The Specialist will work primarily to support subnational teams but will also provide relevant input and advice into national policy and programming. The Specialist will work collaboratively across program teams and in ways that build understanding and capacity in INOVASI in relation to educational leadership.

Duties: Under the direction of Deputy Director – Education Ecosystems and Subnational Management (hereafter Deputy Director Subnational), the Educational Leadership Specialist will:

• Facilitate the development of an educational leadership strategy for INOVASI Phase 3, in collaboration with other deputy directors, provincial managers and external advisors and consultants.
• Support INOVASI sub-national and national teams to develop and implement strategies and tools to help partners in the ecosystems develop their educational leadership strategies to accelerate the improvement of foundational skills attainment, by using the Minimum Service Standards and/or Rapor Pendidikan.
• Coordinate INOVASI technical assistance in the design of interventions, pilots, and GOI and/or partner led approaches to developing principal, supervisor, and other educational leaders to support schools and madrasahs improve school culture conducive to inclusive foundational skills attainment.
• Provide advice and support to provincial teams in relation to collaboration within the ecosystem, particularly the BGPs, MoRA’s BDKs and universities (LPTK) to develop capabilities and improve the leadership practices of principals, supervisors, and other educational leaders.
• Facilitate relationships and coordination between districts actors and with MoECRT/MoRA on educational leadership issues, solutions and/or programs such as Kepala Sekolah Penggerak and/or other principal capacity building programs under MoRA.
• Coordinate and/or provide technical and advisory support to key GoI national counterparts in relation to educational leadership, in the key related areas of the five program IOs.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key GoI national counterparts to ensure INOVASI’s support is aligned to their needs while also contributing to achievement of the five program IOs and the EOPOs.
• Ensure GEDSI priorities are pursued in activities, pilots, interventions, and content developed to achieve more inclusive and equitable educational leadership policies and practices. Explore opportunities to pursue climate change outcomes within educational leadership components.
• Collaborate with advisors and partners in Indonesia and internationally to ensure policy support to GoI partners is technically sound, draws on up to date global knowledge, expertise and networks, and politically feasible in the Indonesian context.
• Work closely with the Performance and Learning team to inform design of MERL approaches to measuring the effectiveness of INOVASI support in improving educational leadership outcome.
• Utilise MERL findings to improve ways of working and approaches to continually make progress towards the five program IOs.
• Maintain strong communication and information sharing within the Education Ecosystems and Subnational Management team and across other national and subnational teams, to ensure both learning within and across teams, and facilitate opportunities for national-subnational collaboration.
• Contribute to six-monthly reporting and to routine and ad hoc reporting to DFAT and GOI, and actively participate in relevant national and global meetings or platforms on education leadership
• Other duties as may reasonably be required by Deputy Director, Education Ecosystems and Subnational Managemen