INOVASI 3 - Evaluation and Research Specialist

at  Palladium Group Inc

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

Overall, the Evaluation and Research Specialist should possess a combination of academic credentials, practical experience, technical skills, and professional competencies. In detail, the person will possess the following qualifications and experience:

• Strong understanding of evaluation and research theories and methodologies and experience in their implementation. The person should be familiar with various evaluation models, research design, data collection and analysis techniques, and statistical methods commonly used in evaluation and research, with knowledge of those in educational domain is an added value.
• Strong skills in analysing complex data sets and interpreting findings, particularly at applying quantitative methods to assess the effectiveness of development programs, policies, and interventions and basic skills and experience in implementing qualitative approaches (skills in education sector is an added value).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, abilities to effectively communicating evaluation and research findings to diverse stakeholders, including policymakers, educators, and the broader public. This includes the ability to prepare clear, concise reports, and presentations. Experience/ability to produce academic publications is an added value.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with INOVASI internal units, key stakeholders, and evaluation/research partners; capable of building relationships, facilitating discussions, and working collaboratively to address research questions and evaluation objectives.
• Commit to ongoing professional development, both through self-learning and other means.

• Strong computer skills and a high level of competency with statistical analysis software.Demonstrated adaptability and ability to perform in a fast-paced, high-pressure, dynamic and ambiguous context.

• • Ability to work both independently and in a team.
• Demonstrated capacity to manage Evaluation and Research staff/teams in various places of assignments.
• Ability to travel at short notice.
• Experience in education sector research is preferred.
• Knowledge on climate change is an added value.
• Experience in writing research reports in 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 Evaluation and Research Specialist will contribute to the work of the Performance and Learning (PNL) team in supporting implementation of MERL activities and operation. INOVASI’s MERL Strategy will describe (i) the program’s approach to assessing and reporting progress towards and achievement of EOPOs and IOs, (ii) how evidence generated by the MERL system will be used in program decision making, adaptation, communications, and policy dialogue, (iii) the program’s research agenda and how it will contribute to and support assessment of progress and achievement of IOs and EOPOs, and (iv) the resourcing and roles and responsibilities of the Performance and Learning (PNL) team. Implementation of the MERL Strategy will involve the Jakarta PNL team as well as MERL personnel in each provincial team.
The Evaluation and Research Specialist will be responsible to ensure that the Performance and Learning (PNL) team is collecting and building robust evidence of how education ecosystem works and improves, what interventions work to improve learning and student learning outcomes in Indonesia, what does not work, and under which circumstances. The work will involve long-term pilot and program evaluation, research and short-term quick turnaround analytical pieces as needed.

Duties: Under the direction of Performance and Learning Manager, the Evaluation and Research Specialist will:

• Support the Performance and Learning Manager to develop the INOVASI Phase 3 MERL strategy, design the overall INOVASI Results Framework, develop annual plan and targets, including the budget, in line with INOVASI Phase 3 purpose and in compliance with DFAT requirements.
• Develop an evaluation and research plan to best serve INOVASI needs for policy dialogue at national and subnational level, providing feedback for key stakeholders in targeted districts for improving education ecosystem, enabling INOVASI to assess and report on its progress and achievement. The evaluation and research plan will integrate new program features such as climate change and GEDSI elements on boys’ and youth’ engagement and women’s leadership.
• Manage the INOVASI evaluation and research system to ensure accuracy, timely input, and meaningful data and information.
• Manage the implementation of INOVASI’s evaluation and research plan to ensure timely feedback for INOVASI management and relevant key partners decision making, incorporating high quality process and products, in compliance with DFAT requirements. The task involves:
• Managing the design and implementation of targeted baseline and endline studies for INOVASI pilots, grants, and program-level evaluation for timely and high-quality outputs.
• Providing technical supervision and/or advice for evaluation conducted by INOVASI grant partners, ensuring quality assurance in relation to evaluation design, sampling methods, quality data collection, synthesizing and analysing data, and identifying key findings to ensure that the grant’s evaluation administered by grant partners will generate quality outputs.
• Managing the design and overseeing implementation of targeted research studies that INOVASI may commission to investigate issues that arise in program implementation, issues arising from program MEL analysis, as well as potentially to respond to the program’s key performance questions.
• Extracting findings from INOVASI evaluation and research outputs and develop suitable reports in various forms, such as presentation files (ppt), factsheets, full reports, flyers, and other types of reporting, in close coordination with the Communication Strategic team and other teams.
• Contributing to enrichment of INOVASI PNL team on relevant academic/theoretical discourses, particularly for new themes of Phase 3 interventions.
• Contributing to the establishment of collaboration with research institutions, other development programs, and individuals to enable INOVASI implement the evaluation and research plan adequately. Communicate and collaborate with Save the Children on implementation of Global Partnership for Education (GPE), focusing on GPE’s evaluation design and implementation.
• Contributing to maintaining networking with relevant stakeholders to enable adequate communication on evaluation and research findings.
• Provide evaluation and research findings for feedback loop and learning, both for internal and relevant external audiences.
• Provide technical advice to ensure adequate approach to learning when relevant.
• Contribute to implement a systematic approach to collect, review, file and share references on student learning outcomes that are relevant for Indonesian basic education.
• Support the Performance and Learning Manager and MERL advisors in responding to requests for rapid-turnaround data analysis, as required, both by INOVASI, DFAT and by GOI partners.
• Collate, curate, and maintain a database of national, district-level and school-level secondary data and analysis, and related administrative and secondary data, both for INOVASI purposes and for key stakeholders.
• Ensure compliance with evaluation and research standards, covering but not limited to, ethical research, child protection risk assessment, and permits from relevant government agencies (as required).
• Other duties as may reasonably be required by the Performance and Learning Manager, Deputy Director of Education Policy, Performance and Learning, and MERL Adviser