NGO Jobs in Kenya - RTI International

Vacant Positions: Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity
 
RTI is an independent organization dedicated to conducting innovative, multidisciplinary research that improves the human condition. 

With a worldwide staff of more than 4,000 people, RTI offers innovative research and development and a full spectrum of multidisciplinary services. 

Universities in North Carolina founded RTI in 1958 as a centerpiece of the Research Triangle Park. 

The Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity is focused on classroom support, teacher training and improved access to learning materials to improve the quality of early literacy instruction in formal and APBET schools through a national literacy intervention.
 
Senior Education Specialist – Nairobi
 
The Senior Education Specialist will provide technical support for the implementation of Tusome in a large part of Kenya. 


The Specialist will supervise technical teams in three offices in their work of developing and revising training materials, implementing training plans, and classroom supervision. 

The Senior Education Specialist will work with RTI technical staff to identify, develop, and harmonize effective literacy instructional approaches to be used in Class 1 and 2. 

The Senior Education Specialist will report to the Deputy Chief of Party Programs and will supervise the work of Education Officers for high quality and timely delivery of work, work closely with the MoEST and county officials, provide support to technical implementation and lead several technical teams. 

S/he will also provide support to TAC tutors and instructional coaches in the implementation of Tusome. 

Geographically, the Senior Education Specialist will supervise three offices and activities in APBET institutions, as well as manage additional technical activities as assigned. 

The assignment is designed to provide high level technical support for effective project implementation.
 
Required Qualifications and Experience: 

Minimum 10 year’s relevant experience in education development. 

S/he needs to have a Minimum of Master’s degree in Education or in a related field. 

S/he needs to have proven record in teacher training, teacher management, and experience supervising education officers.

Experience and knowledge working in early literacy is an added advantage, as is experience with APBET institutions. 

Familiarity with the policies and procedures of the Ministry of Education, Science & Technology, the Teachers’ Service Commission, county level education leadership and local school communities is required. 

Oral and written English and Kiswahili language skills are required.

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer - Nanyuki
 
The M&E Officer will work closely with the Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer and is responsible for supporting M&E activities for the Nanyuki region, supporting several counties. 

S/he will manage the monitoring data and share it with external internal experts to improve Tusome’s use of data for decision-making. 

S/he will submit high quality and clean data for aggregation to national level, and be able to quickly generate high quality periodic reports on Tusome progress.

The M&E Officer will also oversee particular research studies and supervise M&E Assistants in the organization. 

The officer will support a small team of M&E Assistants, and play a proactive role to ensure that Tusome data is of high quality, that reports are done well and on time, and that decision-makers have data for decision-making. 

S/he will provide direct assistance to build clients’ capabilities in M&E and act as a trainer of other technical assistance providers as needed. 

Qualifications & Experience
  • Minimum of Master’s degree in Statistics, Demography, population studies or a related field in Social Sciences with at least (8) eight years of experience in monitoring & evaluation. 
  • Experience in M&E capacity building for individuals and organizations required. 
  • Previous M&E experience on a donor funded program desired. 
  • Proficiency in evaluation design and development of indicators; designing and conducting small-scale research studies; report writing and working knowledge of descriptive and inferential statistics required. 
  • Stata or SPSS skills preferred. Previous supervisory experience required.
Temporary Graphic Designer – Nairobi
 
The graphic designer is responsible for creating design solutions for learning materials. 

The role involves listening to RTI staff and other stakeholders and understanding their design needs; thinking creatively to produce new concepts, through developing designs to improve learning outcomes purpose. 

Drawing and developing charts, graphs, basic illustrations, and other artwork, and laying out learning materials is the core part of the work. 

The designer should have experience in supervising illustrators and using Adobe InDesign and other design software, including Illustrator and Photoshop or equivalent tools. 

Qualifications & Experience: 
  • A diploma or bachelor degree in Fine Art, Communication design, Media arts, Print and digital media management or Visual communication and design. 
  • At least five years of experience as a graphic designer in a mainstream publishing outlet with demonstrated experience in layout and creative services. 
  • S/he needs to have proven competence in desktop publishing tools and design and image processing software. 
  • Accuracy and attention to detail and professional approach to time, costs and deadlines a must. 
  • Experience in developing instructional material for the education sector will be an added advantage.

Tusome Kenya Consultancy Opportunity
 
Background: Tusome is a national level activity with goal of improving the Class 1 and 2 quality of instruction and student outcomes in Kiswahili and English. 

Tusome provides pupils with literacy books and teachers with the training, ongoing support, and lesson plans that enable them to improve their daily instructional practice. 

The Tusome activity, funded by USAID, also uses ICT interventions including tablets as tools for TAC Tutors and coaches. 

This activity has allowed Tusome to design materials that have been implemented on tablets to help instructional supervisors, called TAC tutors and coaches, support learning gains efficiently and at scale.
 
The Tusome Activity has as one of its main goals to support and build capacity of the relevant GOK entities to be able to sustain the work after the activity has concluded. 

The following is a scope of work for a consultant to support an assessment of existing capacity of the primary education sector. 


This assessment will allow RTI to work closely with the GOK to further build capacity and make policy recommendations.
 
Objectives:
 
1. Lead a team of 7 people from the MoEST and Tusome in the preparation and implementation of a capacity building assessment
 
a. Support capacity area specification
b. Support tool development
c. Support tool piloting
d. Support assessment implementation
 
2. Provide technical oversight and input on all aspects of the capacity assessment exercise
 
3. Oversee the analysis of the information gathered
 
4. With input from the capacity assessment team, author the capacity assessment report
 
a. Include in the assessment report specific capacity building areas recommended with action plans
 
5. Implement capacity building activities
 
The consultant will be engaged to lead, manage and actively participate in the work of the capacity assessment team. 

The priority areas for capacity assessment will have already been discussed and agreed to with MoEST, USAID and the Tusome Project. 

The consultant, in consultation with RTI and Tusome Project, will therefore lead the capacity assessment team in devising the methods and means of gathering information related to institutional capacity in those priority/target areas. 

The assessment would probe both the human and institutional factors impacting the relevant offices capacity, including:

Human Factors:
  • Adequacy of staff (in terms of numbers and organization)
  • Knowledge and skills of staff (do they have people with the right skill sets playing the right roles)
  • Motivation and incentives – how are the motivational levels of the officers align (or not) to the objectives of the Programme (or Institution) in an effort to raise productivity levels?
Institutional Factors:
  • Whether roles and responsibilities are appropriately defined all the required areas of expertise of the programme.
  • Whether guidelines for work processes exist and whether the expectations for each office are clearly articulated and communicated (made tangible)
  • Adequacy of materials, tools, time and support (including best practices in Africa & international) for accomplishing the job.
  • Incentives/positive work environment that offers people an opportunity to succeed and recognition for doing so
Specific Tasks:
 
1. Work with Tusome project staff and the capacity assessment team to identify all relevant background documents and other information related to the technical areas deemed priority targets for the assessment work during the programme life.
 
2. Work with RTI and Tusome Project staff to develop an initial draft of the following:
 
a. Capacity assessment instruments, including interview protocols and frameworks for summarizing the organizational structure, staffing, and roles and responsibilities of the relevant offices. 

The tools should be able to gather information related to the human and institutional factors mentioned above, as well as address practical questions such as:
 
i. What office(s) is (are) responsible for the priority technical area (all relevant directorates, SAGAs, ESQAC & TSC)?
 
ii. What is the structure and staffing of that (those) office(s)?
 
iii. What activities did they carry out this past year?
 
iv. How did those activities get accomplished – how were activities identified, planned and resourced, which staff were involved, what other offices may have been involved, how were decisions / implementation managed, what TA or other assistance was involved, how long did it take, etc.?
 
v. How effective was the implementation of those activities? What was done well, what was done poorly, what wasn’t done?
 
b. Capacity assessment information gathering framework and strategy, including, for example, the approach to reviewing pertinent documents related to the roles and responsibilities of the offices to be surveyed, any recent evaluation or other study findings relevant to the targeted offices, and documenting examples of recent work products/accomplishments of PRIMR to the targeted offices. 

Also, including a methodology for selecting a sample of county and sub-county offices to be included in the survey, consideration of team assignments for gathering information at the county and sub-county levels and methods for summarizing and compiling all the data that will be collected. Mainstream the system in the structures that are by backing it on the policy and legal documents that exist in education.
 
3. Review with the capacity assessment team the draft instruments and draft information gathering framework and strategy mentioned above.
 
4. Work with capacity assessment team, and in consultation with RTI and the Tusome Project, to finalize the capacity assessment instruments and information gathering framework and strategy, including the detailed work plan, work assignments and calendar for completing the survey.
 
5. Support the logistical arrangements for field data collection and participate as a member of one of the teams assigned to complete the interviews and data compilation.
 
6. Supervise the capacity assessment team as it summarizes all the gathered information and provide overall quality assurance as the team applies the designed frameworks and methods for compiling and summarizing the relevant information.
 
7. Develop a draft outline for the capacity assessment report and review and finalize that draft outline with RTI, Tusome Project staff, the capacity assessment team and the MoEST. The outline should include space for recommending a capacity building strategy.
 
8. Work in conjunction with RTI and Tusome Project staff to analyze and interpret the summarized and compiled information.
 
9. Produce and submit to RTI and the Tusome Project an initial draft report.
 
10. Incorporate feedback from RTI and the Tusome Project on that initial draft and prepare a second draft to be shared with the capacity assessment team.
 
11. Facilitate a work session among the capacity assessment team members to process the team’s feedback and agree on what should be incorporated into a subsequent third draft of the capacity assessment report. During this session also facilitate discussion among the team of their recommendations for a capacity building strategy that would respond to the findings of the assessment.
 
12. Create the third draft report based on the results of the above consultation/work session and submit that report to RTI, the Tusome Project and MoEST for review and comment.
 
13. Incorporate feedback received into the final report.
 
Deliverables:
  • Capacity assessment instruments
  • Draft assessment report outline
  • Report of works session to disseminate findings
  • Finalized assessment report
Level of Effort
  • 30 working days
  • Field work as necessary
Start date: ~ June 18

Vacant Position: Procurement & Logistics Specialist
 
RTI is an independent organization dedicated to conducting innovative, multidisciplinary research that improves the human condition. 

With a worldwide staff of more than 4,000 people, RTI offers innovative research and development and a full spectrum of multidisciplinary services. Universities in North Carolina founded RTI in 1958 as a centerpiece of the Research Triangle Park.
 
This position will be located in RTI’s Africa Regional Office in Kenya and will support RTI’s projects based in the Africa region.
 
As a member of the Regional Office procurement function the Procurement & Logistics Specialist position will act as a resource to ensure that all project purchases are made according to RTI regulations as well as aligned with strategic sourcing initiatives where global agreements/contracts are available 

The day-to-day activities of this position encompass all aspects of supply chain management, from market research and supplier identification to logistics and post procurement support as well as identifying and developing Africa Region qualified suppliers for a broad range of commodities and services in support of project activities. 


In addition, he/she will provide support in the administration of RTI’s procurement policies and procedures for the Africa projects which includes procurement oversight, review & and advise for the Regional Office procurement portfolio.
 
Requirements for this position are:
 
A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree with at least three (3) years of related experience. 

Knowledge of procurement/contracts principles and terminology as well as basics of contracts administration and finance or accounting. 

Knowledge of, and experience with, the use and interpretation of regulatory material such as the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), Agency Supplementary Regulations (especially various USAID regulations and policies), Code of Federal Regulations, and Uniform Commercial Code. 

Experience working under USAID or DFID funded international projects and Working knowledge of sourcing and management of consultants and grants preferred. 

Applicants must exhibit a flexible work attitude: the ability to work productively in a team environment within a matrix organization. 

They must also be able to work well independently to meet unexpected demands. 

This position requires travel outside Kenya for up to 20%. This position does not attract international allowances.
 
To Apply; please email cover letter and CV to hrapplications@nb.rti.org by 12th June, 2015 

Applicants must include the POSITION TITLE in the subject line of their email. 

Please do not attach copies of certificates.
 
We regret that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.
 

We are proud to be an EEO/AA employer M/F/D/V