Regional Head of Higher Education Programs, SSA at the British Council

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.

We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Regional Head of Higher Education Programs, SSA

Job ID: 44958
Location: Lagos
Work type: Hybrid
Pay Band: 8
Department: Education
Contract Type: Three (3) Years Fixed Term Contract (Renewable)

Description

• We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide.
• We work directly with individuals to help them gain the skills, confidence and connections to transform their lives and shape a better world in partnership with the UK.
• We support them to build networks and explore creative ideas, to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications.
• Working with people in over 200 countries and territories, we are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2021–22 we reached 650 million people.

Role Purpose

• Lead the development and delivery of the SSA portfolio of Higher Education programmes, including complex or large multi-country grant- or partner co-funded programmes.
• This post will lead programmes/projects to a high standard and in compliance with British Council policies and procedures.
• Acts as Senior Responsible Officer if required on programmes with an appropriate level of complexity and will manage large and geographically dispersed programme delivery teams.
• The Head of Higher Education Programmes will focus on supporting the delivery of the outcomes of our work in Higher Education through a suite of global programmes and partnerships including:
  • Going Global Partnerships
  • Alumni UK
  • International Student Marketing and Mobility

Main Accountabilities
Leadership & Management:

• Could act as SRO on programmes or projects with some complexity and ambiguity.
• Leads large, diverse, and geographically dispersed teams.
• Builds capacity and capability in programme management in delivery teams.
•  Champions EDI within the programme and empowers team members to effectively. identify opportunities for mainstreaming EDI in the programme delivery.

Relationship & Stakeholders:

• Responsible for relationships with partners/funders clients and internal stakeholders at a programme/project level.
• Holds delivery partners, team members and consultants to account including through effective supply chain management.
• Communicates on a variety of platforms about the programme or project.

Business Development:

• Work closely with SSA HE Director HE to further develop ODA-funded global programmes in HE in the SSA region building on the Innovation African Universities (IAU) programme as part of Going Global.
• Contributes to proposals and bid documents as required, including partnership work in HE.
• Understands the market in which our programmes operate, plays a proactive role in co-ordination with other organisations/funders, spots opportunities and shares. intelligence about the market through appropriate channels

Commercial and Financial Management:

• Monitors and reports on CPM through project life cycle.
• Oversight of Client invoicing process (if contract).
• Ensure effective management of project profit and loss accounts to achieve income and expenditure targets and to maintain a positive cashflow.
• Ensures sound internal/external financial management, planning and reporting is in place, applies British Council and the funding partner’s financial requirements effectively and ensures financial standards are met.

Programme Management:

• Ensures that programme/project is delivered according to all corporate (and where relevant, client) standards of quality and compliance (for example safeguarding, EDI, supply change management, social value, and conflict sensitivity).
• Work with multiple colleagues to support design of results-based and impact-driven programmes and is responsible for planning and re-design as required.
• Responsibility for managing all contractual obligations on programme or project.
• Convenes risk meetings, updates risk register and either mitigates or escalates risk.

Role Specific Knowledge and Minimum Requirements

• Project management or equivalent qualification
• Extensive experience of leading and managing programmes or large projects.
• Experience of managing multi country or large programmes or large that have met project closure standards and passed audits.
• Extensive experience of managing complex, senior, client, stakeholder and partner relationships and reporting requirements.
• Experience of identifying risk, mitigating risk, and monitoring risk and reporting risk through appropriate channels.
• Experience of developing MEL frameworks and designing data collection mechanisms
• Experience of leading a large, diverse, dispersed project or programme team
• Experience of presenting and communicating programme success to a range of external audiences
• Experience of working with several different funding sources and knowledge of different programme frameworks and compliance rules
• Experience of working within a consortium arrangement or with other funding partners or sponsors and management of associated contracts

Further Information:

• Language Requirements: C1 English
• Role could require some domestic and international travel as required by the programme and some out of hours and evening work responding to or driven by programme/portfolio needs.
• Role holder must have existing rights to live and work in the country the role is based.
• Applications must be in English.

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

Application Deadline 6th February, 2025; 21:59 UK Time / 23:59 South Africa Time