Position Title : Manager II, Education
Location: Nairobi
ChildFund office: Kenya
Manager/Supervisor title: Program & Sponsorship Director
Position type: Full-time fixed term
Work environment: On-site
About ChildFund
ChildFund is a child-focused international development organization that works in 23 countries to connect children with the people, resources and institutions they need to grow up healthy, educated, skilled and safe, no matter where they are.
ChildFund’s Values
We aspire every person in our organization—program participants, supporters, staff, and volunteers alike—to feel free, safe, and confident to be themselves. In our culture of connection, you will have ample opportunity to grow, learn, and lead while contributing your talents and innovations to our inspiring mission.
ChildFund’s Commitment
ChildFund International has a zero-tolerance policy regarding sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (SEAH) and all other forms of harm by its staff, partners, and other representatives in the delivery of its mission and services for children. ChildFund is committed to creating a safe environment in the workplace as well as in the communities where it delivers programs and services. ChildFund expects every staff member, partner, and representative to adhere to this commitment and to ensure all organizational policies and standards are followed. This position is subject to a range of vetting checks, including a criminal records check and/or disclosure to ensure program participants are safeguarded.
About This Role
The Education Manager provides technical leadership for the strategic design, implementation, monitoring, and reporting of ChildFund Kenya’s education programs. This role ensures alignment with ChildFund’s global education strategy and Kenya’s education sector priorities. The portfolio includes Early Childhood Development (ECD), nurturing care frameworks, foundational learning (literacy and numeracy), social-emotional learning, digital literacy, online safety, and child protection initiatives in both formal and non-formal education settings.
The Education Manager will provide strategic leadership on Early Childhood Development (ECD) within ChildFund Kenya’s education portfolio, ensuring explicit alignment with global ECD frameworks and ChildFund’s Nurturing Care approach.
The position will play a critical role in resource mobilization, donor engagement, grant acquisition, and portfolio management, while fostering partnerships and building technical capacity across all education, ECD, Child Protection and safe digital learning programs. It will specifically champion ECD donor priorities and coordinating closely with ECD-focused donors while balancing broader foundational learning and digital safety priorities.
Required Experience and Education
- Master’s degree in education, Early Childhood Development, Social Sciences, Development Studies, or related field.
- Experience:
- Minimum 7 years of progressive experience in education programming within an international NGO or development agency.
- Proven track record in resource mobilization, proposal development, and donor relationship management.
- Experience managing multi-sectoral education projects, including ECD, literacy, teacher training, and child protection.
Primary Responsibilities
Program Strategy, Design & Implementation
- Lead the development of the ChildFund Country education strategy aligned with ChildFund’s global and country strategic plan priorities and other relevant country, regional and global education strategies, policies and frameworks.
- Contribute and participate in the development and review of country strategic plan and related country level strategies, policies, and frameworks.
- Lead integration of ECD strategies across all education interventions, ensuring compliance with national and global standards.
- Lead the design and implementation of evidence-based interventions for ECD, foundational learning, teacher training, social-emotional learning, digital literacy, and child protection projects and programs
- Offer technical guidance to implementing partners (IPs) and field teams on all levels of the education portfolio’s programming standards and best practices
- Collaborate with the International Office ECD Advisor to strengthen technical guidance, quality standards and reach and impact measures in ECD programming.
- Provide technical leadership in the development of tools, guidelines, and training materials for ECD, nurturing care, foundational learning, social-emotional learning, digital literacy, online safety, and child protection education programming.
- Integrate inclusive education, ECD and nurturing care approaches, addressing gender equity and the needs of children with disabilities.
- Develop high-quality proposals and concept notes for donor funding in collaboration with the Business Development team.
- Support the generation of education programming content for internal and external communications through writing briefs, blogs, and articles.
Technical Support & Oversight of Local Partners
- Provide ongoing technical assistance and capacity building to implementing partners, and other technical partners at county and national level.
- Support partners in all education programs’ related planning, budgeting, implementation, and reporting to ensure quality and compliance.
- Conduct regular field visits and technical reviews to monitor progress, identify challenges, and recommend corrective actions.
- Facilitate learning and knowledge exchange among partners to promote innovation and best practices in all education programming, including ECD and nurturing care
- Provide leadership in rolling-out of ChildFund’s global education strategy and nurturing care framework through technical guidance to country office and implementation partner technical staff.
- Ensure integration of safeguarding principles and Nurturing Care Framework across all education initiatives.
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning (MEAL)
- Collaborate with the MEAL team to develop and apply robust frameworks for tracking education program outputs, outcomes, and impact.
- Support partners in data collection, analysis, and reporting, ensuring alignment with donor and organizational standards.
- Lead documentation of success stories, lessons learned, and evidence-based practices and facilitate internal and external learning and knowledge-sharing.
- Support research and evaluation activities to strengthen evidence-based programming.
- Ensure timely and high-quality reporting to donors, government, and ChildFund global offices.
Business Development & Grant Management
- Drive resource mobilization efforts for education programs, and ensuring a diversified and sustainable grant portfolio in ECD, Nurturing care and safe-online programs
- Identify funding opportunities and lead proposal development for education sector initiatives.
- Build and maintain relationships with donors, foundations, and development partners and lead negotiations and discussions for securing funding for education initiatives.
- Strengthen management of relationships and engagement with existing ECD and other education sector donors.
- Provide technical leadership and strategic direction in fostering donor relationships with support from the IO-level ECD Advisor.
- Ensure proactive communication and strong partnership with ECD-focused donors to secure funding and sustain program growth.
- Provide technical leadership in pre-positioning, capture planning, and proposal development for education grants.
- Support budget development, expenditure tracking, and financial reporting in collaboration with finance teams.
- Oversee education related grant implementation, ensuring timely delivery of results, financial accountability, and donor compliance.
- Monitor grant performance, budgets, and timelines to ensure successful delivery and reporting.
Provide technical support to partners in managing education grants effectively.Representation & Advocacy
- Represent ChildFund Kenya in national and regional technical working groups, CSO coalitions, and policy forums related to education, ECD, Child Protection and safe online.
- Foster strategic partnerships with government agencies, NGOs, research institutions, and private sector actors to advance education goals.
- Advocate for inclusive and sustainable education policies and practices at county and national levels.
- Build strategic partnerships with government agencies, private sector actors, and civil society organizations to enhance education program reach and sustainability.
Team Leadership & Capacity Building
- Supervise and mentor education sector program staff, fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and innovation.
- Organize and facilitate training workshops, webinars and mentorship for staff and partners on education-related topics.
- Promote cross-functional collaboration within ChildFund Kenya to integrate education into broader child protection and development programming.
- Support caregiver engagement and community advocacy for improved education outcomes.
Safeguarding.
- Remain alert and responsive to any safeguarding risks; acquire relevant knowledge and skills to enable understanding and application of the safeguarding policy and procedures;
- Promote strong safeguarding practices and perform his/her duty and responsibility to safeguard,
- Report violations, and promote appropriate behavior; and
- conduct self in a manner consistent with the organization’s policies and values.
Required Competencies
ChildFund’s Core Competencies
- Teamwork: the ability to work effectively and collaborate with others; values and respects individual differences.
- Communication: demonstrates empathy and tact when communicating with others and uses a storytelling approach when appropriate.
- Results orientation: gets things done; takes proactive steps to achieve organizational goals and quality standards.
- Decision making: uses good judgement, critical thinking, and non-traditional ways to evaluate problems and opportunities; reflects and innovates to improve decisions and outcomes.
- Resilience: thrives and grows in rapidly changing, demanding, and complex environments.
- Digital literacy: adopts and champions new technology to relevant contexts, stays aware of technological trends and embraces technological solutions to business challenges.
Other Required Competencies
- Language requirement: The ability to read, speak, and write fluently in English. Proficiency in Swahili will be an added advantage.
- In-depth and hands-on experience in Education programming: Experience in managing and implementing education sector programs including expertise in early childhood development, nurturing care framework, child protection, education policy, teacher training and building key foundational skills (i.e., literacy, numeracy, social-emotional learning) and curriculum development, and safeguarding.
- Technical Expertise and Leadership: The ability to provide technical support and leadership for the expansion and diversification of revenue streams
- Grant Proposal Development: Strong skills in technical writing; ability to collaborate with other sector managers, and program technical specialists and the Country Office, Regional and global business development teams to craft well-aligned grant proposals that adhere to ChildFund’s Results Framework, key sectoral and global practices, and evidence of impact.
- Donor Relations and Funding Models: Proficiency in identifying global donors, cultivating relationships with key donors, advising on donor trends, knowledge and understanding of existing and emerging funding models.
- Education Grant Acquisition: Expertise in leading the education grant acquisition portfolio, focusing on proposal development.
- Impact Assessment and Collaboration: Competence in guiding ChildFund education program evidence and impact assessment needs, priorities, and thought leadership strategy and product development.
- Capacity Building and Training: Demonstrated ability to conduct effective capacity building and training both in face-to-face and virtual settings.
- Work effectively in a matrix environment involves the ability to navigate and collaborate within a matrix organizational structure, where multiple reporting lines and cross-functional teams are common.
- Effective representation and networking: represent the organization effectively in various forums and build strong networks with technical partners, multilateral agencies, foundations, and other stakeholders.
- Strong computer skills, with familiarity in using Microsoft Office suite applications: This competency requires proficiency in using Microsoft Office suite applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
This position was originally posted by ChildFund International and has been curated by PurposePhil Career. To apply, please visit the original listing on the "apply" link on the side. We are not affiliated with the employer organization of this job ad or consultancy, and provide this curated listing as a service to our users.
