JOB ANNOUNCEMENT

COACHING SPECIALIST,

Position recruited by Diversified Educators Empowerment Project (DEEP) to support its “Teaching Practices” component on the USAID-funded Liberia Foundational Skills Activity (LFSA)

Number of positions: 1

Location of the position (s): LFSA Monrovia/Montserrado Office with regular travels throughout the six target counties.

Start Date: October 11, 2024

End Date: October 25, 2024

Program Overview

Liberia Foundational Skills Activity (LFSA) is a USAID-funded five-year project designed purposefully to increase the percentage of Liberian children accessing primary school and meeting the government of Liberia’s learning standards especially in foundational English literacy. LFSA will improve education access and learning by increasing on-time enrollment, enhancing age-appropriate placement in classrooms, providing contextually appropriate teaching and learning materials, and improving instructional delivery and teacher wellbeing. LFSA will equip key education ecosystem actors with improved capacity, opportunity, and motivation to achieve results.

Led by Chemonics International in Liberia, LFSA is a five-year project implemented by a consortium of Liberian and international partners, including the Diversified Educators Empowerment Project (DEEP), Kid’s Educational Engagement Project (KEEP), WE-CARE, Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) Liberia, Foundation for Research, Education, and Empowerment (FREE) Liberia, Mathematica, and One World Network of Schools (OWNOS). The project will be implemented in six counties: Montserrado, Bong, Margibi, Grand Bassa, Nimba, and Lofa.

LFSA is expected to make a difference in Grades 1-6 children’s learning outcomes through interventions targeting four key Results (Rs):

1. R1: Age six children are enrolled on time,
2. R2: Children are placed in developmentally or age-appropriate classrooms, including accelerated learning classes,
3. R3: Sufficient and contextually appropriate reading, teaching, and learning materials are available and used by learners, and
4. R4: Teachers consistently apply evidence-based and developmentally appropriate teaching practices and learning materials in the classroom

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

The Coaching Specialist position plays a crucial role in enhancing the quality

of the “teaching practices” component in each of the six counties. To achieve Foundational Literacy Instructional Excellence in the counties, the Coaching Specialist will work in close coordination with OWNOs and LFSA County technical staff and decentralized educational leaders (DEOs, Principals and Vice Principals for Instruction/VPIs) to effectively plan and deliver coaching interventions that will continuously help teachers to improve their classroom practices so that each Grade 1-6 students are supported and motivated to improve their grade-level English literacy skills according to established learning standards and benchmarks. He/she will perform the following principal duties and responsibilities:

• Participate in the design and development of coaching and CPD packages to reinforce foundational English literacy instruction Grades 1-6.
• Coordinates LFSA efforts to train DEOs, Principals, VPIs in evidence-based instructional coaching practices and building their capacity as institutional instructional coaches.
• Lead LFSA efforts to provide personalized support to DEOs and mentoring them into master coaches and instructional leaders enabling them to support Principals and VPIs in their teacher coaching endeavors.
• Participate actively in the OWNOS-led development of coaching modalities/options to be pilot-tested in different schools in order to identify the most effective coaching options for scaling across the counties.
• Coordinate closely with other LFSA program components, such as teacher professional development and curriculum development, to ensure coaching practices are aligned with broader instructional goals and integrated with other ongoing interventions.

• Coordinate, in close collaboration with OWNOS, LFSA efforts to scale effective coaching options across the counties.
• Work with other LFSA technical staff to strengthen the EOs, Principals, VPIs, and teachers’ practice of providing and receiving constructive feedback between based on observations on instructional practices.
• Contribute to the preparation of reports and other technical deliverables.
• Stay abreast of emerging trends and innovations in the education sector to identify opportunities that can enhance LFSA’s goals and objectives.
• Perform other tasks as assigned by the supervisory team

Supervision and Reporting

• The Coaching Specialist will report to the LFSA/DEEP Teaching Practices Team Lead or his/her designee.

Job Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in education or related field.
• At least 3-5 progressive years of experience in teaching, in-service teacher training, or managing USAID or other donor-funded education projects involved with teacher professional development including instructional coaching.
• Demonstrated technical experience in the primary education sector managing teacher training and/or continuous professional developing interventions including instructional coaching components.
• Experience in using data, assessments, observations and feedback to inform coaching practices and improve teacher instructional practices.
• Experience coaching and mentoring teachers and or school leaders to improve classroom practices, ability to give clear feedback and support teacher and leader growth.
• Understanding of adult learning principles and how to apply them in coaching teachers and educational leaders.
• Strong knowledge of evidence-based literacy instruction practices.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to handle difficult coaching conversations and help teachers overcome instructional challenges.
• Proficiency with software such as Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc).
• Strong technical English speaking and writing skills

NOTE: To apply, send your cover letter and CV clearly articulating the required qualifications, experiences and competences to email address: blonkanjayjackson@gmail.com, & rose22saulwas@gmail.com, before the close of business on October 25, 2024.