National Assessment Coordinator, Schools2030 Project

About the Aga Khan Foundation

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), was established by His Highness the Aga Khan in 1967. AKF is a private, not-for-profit international development agency that seeks to provide long-term solutions to society’s problems. AKF brings together human, financial, and technical resources to address challenges faced by the poorest and most marginalised communities in the world. AKF has a special focus on investing in human potential, expanding opportunity, and improving the overall quality of life, especially for women and girls. AKF’s primary areas of focus are; Education; Early Childhood Development (ECD); Health and Nutrition; Civil Society; Agriculture and Food Security; and Economic Inclusion.

AKF is committed to ensuring girls and boys, women and men, are equipped with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to help them interact effectively with the world and be contributing members of a pluralistic society. This demands AKF assumes a holistic, life-long, and systems approach to education. AKF ensures all interventions are globally informed, locally rooted, are embedded in government and community interests and structures, and work to promote social inclusion, equity, and pluralism.

About Schools2030

AKF, in partnership with a global consortium of private foundations, is co-launching Schools2030, a 10-year (2020-2030) learning improvement programme. The ten-year initiative is a participatory action research and learning improvement programme in 1,000 government schools across the ten countries. Using the principles of Human-Centred Design (HCD) and focusing on the key transition years of ages 5, 10 and 15, Schools2030 seeks to catalyse locally rooted education solutions that can inform systems-level approaches for improving holistic learning outcomes. AKF will partner with 100 sites (schools and youth development partners) to drive classroom level innovation to enable teacher generated solutions to identify and inform ‘what works in education’ for the Uganda.

Purpose of the position

The objective of the assessment component is to support teachers to develop their knowledge, skills, and confidence to deliver diverse strategies to continuous classroom based formative assessment of all children. This will include collaborating with teachers and technical specialists (global and national) to adapt and develop context-driven, valid, and reliable formative assessment tools and materials and managing partnerships with global and local assessment partners.

AKF is seeking a National Assessment Coordinator for who will support the education team operationalise the assessment component at the country level.

Duties and Responsibilities

Reporting to the Country Manager, and working in close collaboration with the Schools2030 Coordinator, the broader Schools2030 global team, the broader national education team, and the Regional Education and ECD Advisor, the assessment coordinator will be expected to deliver on the following scope of tasks:

Adapt and develop globally robust and formative assessment tools and strategies

• Identify and adapt pre-existing assessment tools and items in Uganda that align with the learning domains selected.
• Review, adapt and operationalize existing global Schools2030 assessment tools to align with the national curriculum and the realities of the Ugandan education system.
• Co-develop new formative assessment tools for the selected holistic learning domains within the Schools2030 global framework. The coordinator will be supported by the AKF Global Assessment Partner to develop these new tools.
• Coordinate the pilot of the holistic learning assessment tools and items in the country collating all data for sharing with internal teams, external partners, and teachers as needed.
• Identify and develop partnerships with organizations that specialize in formative assessment. These can include formative assessment solutions and capacity development for teachers in assessment for learning.

Teacher Professional Development

• Based on the solutions developed, map formative assessment knowledge and skills needed and identify courses and partners to meet these professional needs.
• Manage partnerships with teacher professional development partners.
• Where needed, design and deliver an assessment for learning capacity development courses for teachers.
• Measure and determine the impact of the diverse professional development courses to inform the continual improvement of these to meet teacher demands and needs.

Measuring impact and identifying high potential solutions

• Collaborate with the M&E team and the Data Management Officer in the effective collection, analysis, and feedback of data.
• Measure and determine the impact of the diverse professional development courses to inform the continual improvement of these to meet teacher demands and needs.
• Continually identify assessment for learning solutions, strategies, and tools that demonstrate impact and potential for scale.
• Support the country team to interpret assessment findings and identifying implications for national education policy.
• Any other responsibilities as requested by the Country Manager.

Key Qualifications and Experience

• Relevant undergraduate qualifications including, Education, Teacher pre-service, etc.
• Relevant experience working in schools and/or education programmes. Experience in research management an added advantage.
• Proven experience in the design of formative assessment strategies and tools.
• Proven experience in the design and delivery of teacher professional development courses.
• Proven experience managing budgets and producing high quality reports.
• Excellent communication and inter-personal skills.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders.
• Ability to deliver high quality outcomes working collaboratively as part of a diverse team under short timelines.
• Experience working as part of a global team with colleagues across many geographies and countries.
• Excellent verbal and written English
• Excellent ICT skills with basic Microsoft software and more complex ICT programmes.