Consultant for the development of FLN Policy and implementation plan at UNICEF

UNICEF contributes to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria with a mandate to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.

UNICEF’s Nigeria country programme:

Aims to accelerate the realization of the rights of all children and women to survival, development, protection and participation.
Promotes efforts to reduce infant, child and maternal mortality; expand access to quality basic education; and strengthen social and child protection systems.
Uses a rights-based and gender-sensitive approach
Plays a catalytic role in supporting federal, state and local governments in identifying key bottlenecks that hinder realization of the rights of disadvantaged children, supported by equity-focused, inclusive advocacy, planning, action and monitoring at all levels.
Supports adolescent development.Minimum Requirements

Education:

Advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in: Education Development, Foundational Learning, Sustainable development, Education Policy, Teacher Training, International Relations, or related field.

Work Experience:

Demonstrated strong working knowledge and experience in current global issues and best practices in Education. 
Proven experience supporting government-led education reforms in any Sub-Saharan Africa region or a similar context to Nigeria. 
A minimum of 8 years of experience on improving learning quality, ideally with a focus on curriculum or learning materials development, teacher professional development, quality pedagogy and teaching and learning approaches in basic education. 
Demonstrable experience supporting the development, implementation and scale-up of effective approaches for improving learning quality, ideally focused on developing and rolling out quality, curriculum-aligned content for basic education focused on foundational literacy and numeracy.

Language Requirements:

Fluency in English.

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills:

Demonstrated expertise in education sector planning and strategy development, particularly on out-of-school programming in Nigeria or similar context. 
Excellent written and oral communication skills, with experience translating evidence for and communicating with a broad range of actors (including government) on sensitive issues.  
Proven experience of the FLN landscape ideally in Sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria specifically. 
Familiarity with competency-based education standards and instructional design in low-resource or multilingual settings.
 
Desirables:
Knowledge of the Nigerian political landscape and recent developments in education. 
Familiarity with the Nigerian education context will be considered an asset. 
Experience working with UN agencies or other international development agencies. 
A good understanding of UNICEF’s programmatic areas. 
Ability to work to tight timeframes and flexibility to adjust to needs of government and UNICEF 
Ability to present ideas concisely for diverse audiences and to give practical, actionable advice grounded in evidence. 
Strong writing skills.