This position is responsible for strategic planning, management and implementation; program design and implementation; policy reforms; building public private partnerships; community mobilizations; monitoring and evaluation; student assessment, teacher observations, Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA); people management and consulting.
Supporting the Sindh Education and Literacy Department (E&LD) throughout Sindh province to improve reading skills of around 300,000 children in grade one and two of 12 districts. The goals are to support the three interrelated components including improved classroom learning environment for reading, improve policies and systems for reading and community based support for reading in Pakistan. The anticipated results include 6,002 teachers in about 6,002 public schools with improved skills in teaching reading; 687 scholarships for ADE and B.Ed. (Hons) students, and mobile bus libraries reaching out to 200 communities.
The position reports to the projector director in Creative Associates International (CAI) in Washington as well as to the Deputy Chief of Party programs.
Responsibilities Include:
Ensuring that the program is implemented in compliance with USAID rules and regulations and Creative policies and procedures;
Developing work plans, provincial budgets, and to develop a shared understanding of project purpose, objectives and cohesive technical approach in the province;
Coordinating and collaborating closely with other senior management team to ensure achievement of targeted objectives;
Planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation and assessment of the activities of the program and developing progress reports;
Coordinating closely with the provincial and district departments of education to implement the Pakistan Reading Project;
Representing PRP at different government formed committees such as the Provincial Steering and Standing Committees' meetings;
Coordinating with USIAD team on project implementation, keeping them updated on activities and special events;
Recruiting, training and deploying provincial and district teams;
Managing the provincial and district offices in an open and respectful manner;
Managing and implementing in 20 districts in Sindh;
Leading and managing a team of over 200 staff and ensuring that the staff members understand their roles, responsibilities and level of accountability for implementation of project activities towards achievement of project results, arrange for training and skill building of team members as required for them to perform optimally in their roles.
The staff includes teams from operations, logistics, finance, security, monitoring and evaluation, policy reforms, assessment and professional development units as well as field staff and offices in all project districts.
Resolving programmatic and administrative planning issues at the provincial and district-level and providing timely information to the staff for achieving their targets;
Training of senior government officials in the province;
Gathering additional inputs from country program and project-level analyses including independent party findings, project lessons learned, impact and stability assessments. Periodically incorporate these into a revised regional strategy, district work plans, team updates and improved project design;
Ensuring the non-partisan implementation of each activity and the achievement of outputs as stated in the grant agreement using secondary sources of information;
Leading the provincial and districts teams to organize and celebrate international events such as Universal Children's, Literacy Day or Women's day etc.
Leading the provincial team in the development of provincial weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual work plans reports.

This position was responsible for managing the entire project's implementation in the province. The position reported to the Chief of Party and worked in close coordination and communication with the Project Director (EDC DC Office). It was also part of the Senior Management Team of the project, which included the Senior Technical Directors Policy and Planning, Curriculum and Professional Development, Monitoring & Evaluation, Communications, Finance, Human Resources and Operations. Responsibilities Included: Coordinating closely with the COP, PD and Senior Technical Directors to develop a shared understanding of project purpose, objectives and cohesive technical approach; Communicating project purpose, objectives and technical approach to the provincial project team and government, college and university counterparts. Leading the provincial USAID Teacher Education Project team in the development of provincial quarterly and annual work plans and quarterly and annual reports. Managing and facilitating the implementation of the USAID Teacher Education Project plans in the province. Facilitating regular team meetings to share progress, resolve challenges monitor and adjust the implementation of work plans. Representing the USAID Teacher Education Project to provincial stakeholders primarily provincial government and their teacher education management institutions and universities). Convening and planning for provincial meetings (including advisory groups, dissemination workshops or activities related to curriculum and professional development). Ensuring that the USAID Teacher Education Project is responsive to plans and initiatives for pre-service teacher education in the province; providing guidance to technical teams on ways to adapt/nuance activities for the province. Ensuring high-level of responsiveness by and acceptance of USAID Teacher Education Project in the province. Guaranteeing that the provincial team produces high-quality, professional deliverables at all times and consistently models a highly professional message and image about the project across all audiences in the province. Liaising closely with other donors/programs/projects working in the teacher education sector in the province to build programmatic synergy between USAID Teacher Education Project and other programs. In consultation with the USAID Teacher Education Project Communications team, organizing and conducting events and public relations activities within the province; ensuring strict adherence to USAID Teacher Education Project Branding and Marking requirements and USAID and EDC Communications guidelines. Support the Head Office in organizing Study Tour. Any other duties as assigned Tasks specific to technical activities: In close coordination with the Senior Director - Education Policy and Planning lead the provincial strategic planning effort, assisted the provincial government to design and subsequently implement a framework for pre-service teacher education. Ensure that the provincial government puts into place specific policies that support the acceptance, integration, roll-out and scale-up of the two-year ADE and four-year B.Ed (Hons) degrees. Assist the government in creating and implementing (at a minimum) two other policies related to improving/enhancing pre-service education -- as identified in and driven by their provincial strategic plans (this may include addressing issues of institutional rationalization, research and evaluation, recruitment and retention and other HR policies, planning for accreditation and use of standards) Tasks specific to Project finance, administration, operations and security. Overseeing preparation of budgets for project activities in the province; monitoring spending against work plans. Supervising a team of approximately 15 staff including direct reports. Ensuring that annual staff performance appraisals for all staff in the province are completed as per EDC requirements. Ensuring that all EDC policies and procedures are adhered to by USAID Teacher Education Project staff in the province, including those concerned with security. Ensuring high-quality standards on all project products, deliverables and interactions with beneficiaries and government counterparts. Undertaking frequent field visits (at least one week each month) to ensure one-on-one contact with university and college partners, engaging in discussions about project progress, and providing oversight and formative monitoring of project implementation. Attending monthly Senior Management Team / Provincial Directors meeting. Traveling to Islamabad as frequent as required. Participate in weekly conference calls and updates with counterparts from across PreSTEP. Engaging in frequent communication, networking and sharing of best practices with other Provincial Directors Some of the Key Successes achieved in the project as a Provincial Director: Developed close relationship with the senior education minister, secretary education and other officials of the Government of Sindh’s Education and Literacy Department. PTC and CT certificate courses phased out by the department. Piloted and rolled-out Associate Degree in Education (ADE) and B.Ed. (Hons) Elementary throughout the province. Convinced the provincial government to rationalize human resource. Based on this rationalization 119 new teaching staff was hired through Sindh Public Service Commission and 109 non-teaching staff for the ADE offering Government Elementary Colleges of Education (GECEs). Before starting the project there were few teachers in the colleges and in some colleges there were no teachers besides the principal. Now the average is more than 12 teachers per ADE offering college. Worked with CIDA Debt-Swap Project to align their project to support the new degrees: o Redirect PTC/CT scholarships to ADE students. 285 scholarships were offered to ADE students of second cohort of GECEs. o Provide material resources such as generators, computers, furniture, water coolers, printers, photocopiers, and books as per the GECEs' needs. o Improve infrastructure at GECEs. Through public-private partnership and through personal contacts INTEL provided 20 personal computers and 40 laptops to GECEs as a donation. Convinced the Secretary Education to provide 10.8 million Rupees for material resources to the GECEs. The resources are being provided at this moment. Service Rules to provide employment opportunity to the graduates of ADE and B.Ed. (Hons) are in the final stages of approval. The Education Department agreed to adopt Teacher Education Strategy as a chapter in the Education Sector Review document funded by the World Bank. Finance: Key steps are taken to ensure sustainability and quality of the programs. o Budgets of GECEs have been revised and new line items added (such as Internet, annual affiliation cost etc.) o Creation of new posts through SNE (Schedule of New Expenditures) o PC1s are being developed to meet future GECEs' infrastructure needs.