Education Development Center (EDC) is a global nonprofit that advances lasting solutions to improve education, promote health, and expand economic opportunity. Since 1958, we have been a leader in designing, implementing, and evaluating powerful and innovative programs in more than 80 countries around the world.  

EDC promotes equity and access to high quality education and health services and products that contribute to thriving communities where people from diverse backgrounds learn, live, and work together. We support an inclusive workplace culture that embraces many perspectives and broadens our understanding of the communities we serve, enhancing and enriching our work.   

Activity Description

The purpose of the USAID Dominican Republic Basic Education Recovery Activity will help Ministry of Education (MINERD) achieve the goals outlined in the institutional strategic plan to improve the quality of education in the early grades of primary school, with special attention given to diminishing the long-standing gaps in students’ learning outcomes that were further exacerbated by COVID-19 school closures. The Basic Education Recovery Activity will coordinate with MINERD to achieve four key objectives: 1) Improve literacy instruction in pre-first and the early primary grades; 2) Provide remedial reading interventions for students in first through third grade who are most at risk for academic failure; 3) Implement social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions for all students in grades pre-first through third grade; and 4) strengthen system-level inputs/processes to ensure improved reading and SEL outcomes for all children. Applicants are encouraged to identify private sector and other innovative solutions to accomplish the desired objectives and results of the activity.

Position Description

The Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist (SMES) establishes and manages the overall activity system to track progress towards meeting contract results, indicators and targets. The individual will ensure that performance monitoring, action research, and evaluations are consistent with program results and track activity progress towards achieving targets and results. The SMES will manage and coordinate field-based monitoring and evaluation specialists, and any other staff responsible for performance monitoring, oversight, and data collection and reporting. The individual shall ensure that the methodologies proposed by the EDC  to measure the program impact on access, retention, reading and learning outcomes, school safety, community engagement, gender, disability-inclusive, and conflict sensitive measures, are being consistently and systematically tracked and reported.

The candidate for the position of Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist shall have at a minimum the following qualifications:

Education:

A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree (or international  equivalent) in education, public/business administration, international relations, other social sciences, or a similar relevant field. Master’s degree is desired.

Skills and Experience:

• At least six years’ experience, including performance monitoring, monitoring and evaluation, or operations research related to education in international development work;
• At least four years monitoring and evaluating education sector programs;
• At least two years’ experience working with national/local institutions’ Education Management Information Systems (EMIS);
• Demonstrated experience in monitoring results and indicators of education quality, learning outcomes, access, retention, and community engagement;
• Competency in descriptive and inferential statistics, including experience with statistical software (e.g., SPSS or Stata, as well as Excel);
• Experience in qualitative research design, data collection, and analysis; 
• Knowledge of database management;
• Demonstrated knowledge of MS Word, Excel, Outlook; and
• Demonstrated high level of professionalism when dealing with sensitive and confidential documents and issues, and with co-workers and EDC partners.

Language:

Fluency in Spanish and Working Proficiency in English is required.

Due to the volume of applications submitted, only finalists will be notified.  No phone calls, please.

EDC is committed to enhancing the diversity of its workforce and ensuring an equitable and highly inclusive work environment. EDC is a smoke-free workplace, and offers a supportive work environment, competitive salary, and excellent benefits. Women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply.