Director, Schools Inspection at KwaraLEARN (Government of Kwara State)

KwaraLEARN (Leading Education Achievement and Reform Now) is a core new education programme by the Government of Kwara State to deliver dramatic improvements in learning outcomes in public schools for all children across Kwara State. KwaraLEARN will transform all government primary schools across the state into powerful public schools using an innovative technology and data-driven platform, coupled with high-quality learning materials, effective training and ongoing coaching for teachers and school leaders, and technology-enabled support teams to create 360-degree support for learning outcomes.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Director, Schools Inspection

Location: Ilorin, Kwara
Employment Type: Full-time

Programme Overview

• Working for the technical implementing partner for the programme, you will work towards preparing Kwara and its youth for a bright future with a strong educational foundation
• Being part of this transformative programme will be a challenging but fulfilling experience. You will have the opportunity to impact young lives and help build the future of Kwara and Nigeria
• The programme is one of the most exciting and ambitious education programmes not only in Nigeria, but also across Africa
• A quality education has the power to transform the opportunities for Kwara's youth and the State. In joining us, you will join a group of dynamic and passionate Nigerians taking concrete action to help ensure a better future for the children of Kwara.

About the Role

• We are seeking a full-time School Inspection Director who is excited about improving learning outcomes in government schools by providing technical and managerial leadership to a larger School Inspection (audit) team and building the capacity of our government partner’s School Inspection team.
• We aim to impact teaching and learning, so we need to deliver high quality data to decision makers at all levels of the organisation & to our government partner.
• School Inspection ensures that we have accurate knowledge of what is happening in schools by auditing all school management work. The data output from the audits you’ll design and run will be used to drive continuous improvement in the schools.
• The School Inspection Director must work effectively with people from diverse backgrounds, from different functional areas, and must be excited about driving change by recommending improvements to our processes to work towards audits that demonstrate 100% compliance.
• You will be responsible for the daily management of a large field team, proposing and adapting audits to ensure operational excellence after developing an in-depth understanding of the programme needs on both the government side & the technical partner side, analysing & providing actionable data from the audits via reports & dashboards, collaborating closely with other teams to ensure that the issues the School Inspection team observed are not only understood but also addressed rapidly.
• The Schools Department is also the primary client, as the strong majority of concerns exposed by an audit have to be directly solved or project managed by the Schools Department.
• Other departments that take action based on audits include Operations, including Supply Chain and IT, as well as People. It is for this reason this function has direct executive reporting and oversight.
• A critical component of this role is leading meetings, reporting, providing technical expertise, and working in close partnership with the government partner School Inspection team, which includes staff in their headquarters & in the field.
• Collaboration with the government partner School Inspection team will continue to increase as the programme matures and culminate in the incorporation of the government partner School Inspection team into the internal School Inspection team.
• Your team of field associates will be heavily relied upon to support school staff to drive operational excellence, actively solve problems, and to ensure that schools are safe & conducive learning environments.
• The School Inspection Director will lead a team of School Inspection Supervisors who in turn manage a large field team of School Inspection Associates.
• The School Inspection Director will report into the executive leadership of the programme (either Project Director or Managing Director) and have a dotted/technical reporting line to the Regional Director, School Inspection.
• The primary audit focus for School Inspection is the entire ecosystem of the Schools Department, which includes all aspects of school management, school materials, school personnel, school hardware, and any other action that is part of our overall performance.

What You Will Do

• Establish School Inspection Procedures. The School Inspection Director is responsible for creating and implementing School Inspection procedures and methodologies after deeply understanding our processes. The School Inspection Director will measure, monitor, and analyse current processes, make recommendations for improvement and develop new solutions to enhance quality control. The School Inspection Director will use and continually improve the core audits and best practices already in place.
• Manage School Inspection staff: The School Inspection Director will lead the School Inspection team of supervisors & associates. This includes training them on new or revised procedures and systems; supervising them during the School Inspection process to ensure that they are correctly utilizing School Inspection methods and systems; and also supporting them as they monitor corrective actions implemented by other departments for critical/major and minor nonconformities, ensuring that actions are effective, implemented in a timely manner, and are permanent in nature to avoid recurrence of deficiencies.
• Report Quality Issues to Schools and Operations Department Leaders & lead with ensuring rapid resolution. To support teaching and learning activities, the School Inspection Director will ensure there is rapid , clear visibility of audit results always visible to the Schools Department, and for relevant audits, for Operations, including Supply Chain and IT, as well as People. The data from the School Inspection audits is only worth collecting if it is rapidly visible and used to drive decision-making and correct any lapses or errors. Responsibilities also include ensuring that issues reported by School Inspections capture all the necessary data required for action by other teams and are assigned to the right team for resolution. Where systemic issues are made visible, the School Inspection Director is to work with other teams and the MD to identify such issues and any bottlenecks in the resolution process.
• Maintain School Inspection Records. The School Inspection Director will maintain detailed records of School Inspection activities and issues. These reports provide comprehensive records of School Inspection activities and help the organisation determine what’s working and what needs to be corrected.This includes management of the School Inspection field team, ensuring integrity in data collection.
• Analyze Data Outputs & Create Quality Control Reports. The School Inspection Director will support and enhance the organisation’s performance by analyzing and assessing audit data. In this aspect of the role, the School Inspection Director finds patterns and areas for improvements based on School Inspection data over time and utilizes these reports to improve processes and performance. The School Inspection Director determines whether their teams meet targets, deliver expected performance, and maintain overall workflow. This data must be provided rapidly to drive decisions in real time.
• For any project, be ready to propose a plan and execute. This includes creating a timeline, liaising with other departments to get the support you need, managing performance and motivating staff members, figuring out how to get things done when things don’t go as planned, getting the data you need and getting it right, conducting analyses, framing the results, and answer any and all questions about your work.
• Lead and provide technical expertise during engagements with the government School Inspection partners which will include:
• Leading meetings with the government partner and writing periodic reports; identifying & anticipating challenges / bottlenecks in the collaboration with the government partner and partnering with the MD and Policy & Partnership team to address these.
• Working with School Inspection shared services to ensure that the School Inspection audits within the programme align to the needs of both the program and the government partner
• Detailed review of the structure of their School Inspection team and working with them to better structure their teams to drive operational excellence in the schools
• Working with School Inspection shared services to design and then scheduling and carrying out School Inspection-focused training for the government partner School Inspections.

What You Should Have

• A Bachelor's Degree from a top-tier university with an excellent academic record. Quantitative Undergraduate Degrees are preferred
• Team management experience– to direct, mentor, and oversee field associates within the School Inspection department, you should possess effective leadership, coordination, and motivation skills
• Process enhancement skills – to find ways to streamline processes and boost efficiency, you should have some knowledge of process improvement and enhancement
• Organization skills –to successfully direct and oversee all School Inspection procedures and coordinate production processes you should have strong organization skills
• Excellent communication skills (writing and speaking), which enable you to communicate complex ideas effectively to people at all levels in the organisation. You will need to provide reports to production managers and business leaders to influence decision-making.
• Exceptional analytical and quantitative problem solving skills. You need to be able to see patterns, be a fast thinker and a good decision maker
• Advanced MS Excel/spreadsheets skills, and mastery of presentation/reporting tools such as MS Word/Google docs & MS Powerpoint/Google slides
• Strong willed, a fast learner and able to effect changes fast. You should be able to flourish in dynamic, ambiguous environments, to produce high quality work with very short deadlines, effectively prioritize work among multiple competing demands, and adapt to unexpected work demands
• Bonus – previous experience in School Inspection/audit, including designing surveys; experience working with government; experience in extreme growth situations and dealing with complexity; worked/studied in a developing country, and/or experience implementing data collection projects. Experience with data collection tools such as KoBo Toolbox, and other statistical analysis tools such as R, Stata, Python is also a bonus.

You’re Also:

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
• A networking mastermind – You excel at meeting new people and turning them into advocates. You communicate in a clear, conscientious, and effective way in both written and oral speech. You can influence strangers in the course of a single conversation. Allies and colleagues will go to bat for your ideas. You have an existing network from prior experience in the country, preferably in the regulatory, education, or business sectors.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, KwaraLEARN works in often fragile, sometimes volatile low-resource communities and with complex government systems. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.
• A relentless advocate –The children we serve and teachers we empower never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their benefit, experience, and value.
• A malleable learner –You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.
• A data-driven decision-maker – When making decisions, you don’t rely on your intuition alone. You collect data, you analyze it and make decisions with clear justifications.
• A curious investigator – You ask why a lot. You don’t just take what you see and accept it. You wonder why it is that way, and are aware that the world we see is created by human choices and actions – and it could be different. You wonder, and see the world as wonderful even when you want to change a part of it that is unjust.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply

Application Deadline  30th June, 2022.