Measurement, Learning, and Evaluation (MLE) Senior Associate Job Vacancy in Kenya - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Role Purpose

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa seeks a Senior MLE Associate to support the design and implementation of measurement and monitoring strategies for our TaRL programs across countries. The associate will work with partners and country teams to coordinate and streamline data collection; analyze data; and establish feedback, review and reporting structures. In addition to this, the associate will lead/ support nimble learning studies to unpack, adapt, and improve aspects of TaRL programming.

This role provides an excellent opportunity for individuals who are motivated to use data to improve the learning outcomes of children in Africa.

Major roles and responsibilities

1.Provide oversight to the country teams/ partners to develop a robust program measurement, monitoring and review strategy: An effective measurement, monitoring and review strategy is crucial for creating strong localized TaRL programs that are embedded within existing government systems. The MLE team works closely with the program and content teams to provide regular feedback to government and partners for better TaRL implementation. They also build their capacity to understand and use data for immediate course corrections.

  • Understand the program objectives and different stakeholder needs to support the country MLE associates and partners in designing tools / processes for data collection, quality assurance, mentoring, monitoring, and review
  • Support TaRL Africa country teams and partners on analyzing program data and sharing key insights with government stakeholders, partners and TaRL Africa Central team on the successes, challenges, lessons learnt, and highlighting areas that require urgent attention
  • Develop a strong understanding of governments’ existing measurement and monitoring systems in TaRL Africa’s directly supported countries and undertake efforts to build government’s technical capacity and embed TaRL data systems into the government systems
  • Regularly assess the technical capacity of country MLE associates and conduct workshops on data analysis, visualization, dissemination, and other technical aspects as necessary
  • Regularly synthesize knowledge and multi-year data from different contexts and present to the TaRL Africa teams

2. Lead scoping, designing, and testing nimble learning / deep-dive study ideas: TaRL Africa believes in adaptive learning and course-correction of programs in the pursuit of making the TaRL programs more effective and owned by governments. In addition to rigorous research and evaluations to build on the already strong evidence for TaRL, we regularly conduct nimble learning studies to better unpack program challenges and identify ways to strengthen.

  • Design pilot assessment and monitoring systems
  • Oversee and support pilot implementation including training of stakeholders
  • Provide contextual knowledge, make field plans to implement learning activities on the ground
  • Train and supervise country teams/ enumerators on data collection
  • Monitor pilot process and providing periodic reports
  • Analyze, report, and disseminate pilot outcomes and implications / recommendations to government, partners, and internal teams

3. Miscellaneous:

  • Support rigorous research activities as needed, including literature reviews, providing contextual knowledge for questionnaire design and analysis
  • Creatively communicate program lessons and results with the TaRL community and more broadly (e.g., through blogs, articles, podcasts, newsletters)
  • Keep abreast of government policies, recent initiatives / programs in the countries directly supporting
  • Support other tasks as assigned by the line manager

Education and Qualifications

  • Minimum qualification: A Bachelor degree and 3-4 years of work experience as an analyst or similar positions with an analytical bent. Applicants from for-profit/ consulting background looking to switch to the social sector for creating impact are also welcome to apply.
  • Excellent data analysis skills
  • Ability to think analytically and critically, keeping the big picture in mind and remaining curious
  • Experience working with data manipulation software, including data collection, analysis & visualization platforms (Required: Excel; Strongly preferred: Tableau/Power BI, Stata)
  • Excellent communication skills in English, including writing, conversing, and presenting
  • Self-starter with an attitude to get the job done
  • Strong interpersonal skills with cross-cultural teams
  • Passionate about improving children’s learning through excellent data use
  • Willingness to travel frequently and flexibly within Africa, especially in remote rural areas

Preferred

● Experience working in the development and/or the education sector in Africa

● Experience working with governments

● Familiarity with French

● Previous experience of building data systems for similar mission-driven organisations

● Familiarity with econometric and program evaluation techniques

● Familiarity with national and regional learning assessments

● Strong preference for Kenyan Nationals

TaRL Africa Values

  1. We put children’s learning first.
  2. We are always learning, improving, and innovating.
  3. We are locally rooted for high-quality delivery and sustainable impact.
  4. We are kind, respectful and collaborative.
  5. We are proactive, committed to integrity and doing our best each day.

How to apply

Please fill in APPLICATION by 24th April 2023. Only applications submitted through the form will be accepted. Please note that,

due to the large volume of applications, we will only be able to respond to short-listed applicants.