Regional Education Advisor for Education Out Loud in Asia Pacific

Are you motivated to make an impact in an international funding mechanism for civil society? Do you have experience with multi-country programming, the education sector or developing capacity and learning interventions? If yes, we would like to hear from you!

Background

Education Out Loud (EOL) supports civil society organisations in shaping education policy to ensure the right to free inclusive education to all, especially for the most marginalized communities. We promote inclusive, gender responsive and equitable national education policies and systems through enhanced civil society capacities and participation in social accountability and policy advocacy processes.

Managed by Oxfam Denmark and financed by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), EOL is the biggest fund in the world for education advocacy with grants awarded to app. 80 organisations in more than 60 countries. Created in 2019, the EOL programme was recently extended to mid-2027 bringing the total funding of EOL to USD 133 million.

The EOL programme consists of five entities: A Global Management Unit (GMU) based at Oxfam Denmark’s offices in Copenhagen, Denmark, and four Regional Management Units (RMUs) located in Senegal, Guatemala, Nepal, and Uganda. Altogether, our grant agent set-up for EOL comprises app. 30 positions, 6 of these are in the Regional Management Unit for Asia Pacific. 

Who we are looking for

Oxfam Denmark’s Education Out Loud Programme is looking for a Regional Education Adviser for our Regional Management Unit in Asia Pacific with experience and relevant qualifications in one of the following fields: 

• Learning and organisational capacity development
• Civil society engagement and strengthening, especially related to education
• Education programme management
• Education policy influencing, evidence-based advocacy and social accountability
• Grant management

EOL is an extensive, complex, and ambitious programme with a wide outreach to a diverse range of stakeholders. Our new colleague should be motivated by making and impact in an international funding mechanism for civil society and consider it a meaningful challenge to be responsive to individual grantees as well as collaborative learning across the region. Our new colleague will be maintaining consistent and systematic approaches to ensure fair and transparent relations, assessments and decision-making processes with supported organisations. 

Our new colleague is willing and able to travel across the region in up to 8-10 weeks per year.

Job purpose

The Regional Education Adviser is an integral part of the Regional Management Unit in Asia Pacific, physically located in Kathmandu, Nepal. The incumbent provides technical support to the 25 EOL grantees allocated to the Regional Management Unit from across the region in the development and implementation of thematic and strategic advocacy and social accountability projects on education funded by the EOL mechanism. The post holder will provide strategic orientation and oversight on the design and implementation of the EOL learning framework and the learning approaches in the region, as well as facilitating collaborative learning between grantee organisations, and developing/maintaining relationships and contracts with regional and global learning partners in support of civil society capacity strengthening. 

The Regional Education Advisor will among others: 

• Lead and advise on technical support in strengthening civil society in education
• Lead on operationalisation of the EOL learning framework in the region through continuously adapted regional learning plans;
• Be part of and contribute actively to the Education Advisors’ Virtual Team across EOL and the specific tasks in the team;
• Identify areas of learning for the EOL education portfolio through active engagement with civil society organisations (grantees) on their learning plans;
• Maintain the Regional Learning Partner pool as relevant and active in relation to learning areas and identified priorities in EOL Regional Learning Plan;
• Lead on learning from experience e.g. through facilitating the establishment and functioning of learning collaboratives or peer learning across grantees in the region and contribute to facilitate learning events;
• Ensure the promotion of gender equality and social inclusion in all parts of the learning framework implementation;
• Together with the Regional MEL Advisor, contribute to identifying methods for distilling lessons learnt on civil society participation in education policy in line with EOL Results framework and identifying areas for cross-cutting research or collation of information from grantees;
• Contribute to building the evidence from our work and disseminating this among key audiences through EOL’s communication channels.

Skills, experience, and knowledge

The ideal candidate will demonstrate the following skills.

Essential

• Advanced degree or significant experience in a relevant field (international development, education programming, education policy, etc.) with 5-10 years of post-graduate experience.
• Fluent language skills in English, written and spoken.
• Comprehensive knowledge and experience in project cycle management.
• Documented experience from acting in an advisory capacity on education programming.
• Good understanding of Education policy issues and knowledge of the key actors in this field in the region. Experience from working in the context of several countries in the very diverse region required.
• Documented experience from working with civil society strengthening and inclusive participation of young people, women and marginalised groups.
• Familiarity with human rights in education, the SDGs/2030 agenda, familiarity with the work and agenda of international and education stakeholders.
• Knowledge of and experience in facilitating capacity building, learning and organisational development processes and how to create a learning and sharing environment with a strong knowledge management basis.
• Proven collaboration, communication, and networking.
• Strong organisational and personal management skills, with ability to prioritise work issues to meet deadlines with minimal supervision and adjust to constantly changing situations while maintaining focus on delivery and follow through.

Desirable

• Experience working with adaptive management approaches.

Practical information

The workplace of this position is flexible: in a country in the Asia Pacific region, where Oxfam can establish a legal contract or with the Regional Management Unit (RMU) in Kathmandu, Nepal.

This is a full-time role. We offer a fixed-term contract till the end of June 2027. Grading, package depends on qualifications and working hours and location. 

We believe flexible working is key to building the Oxfam of the future, so we’re open to talking about the type of working arrangements that might work for you. Extensive travel across the region is a requirement for the position.

The candidate will work closely with other Regional Management Unit team members, currently in Nepal, and will be reporting to the Regional Programme Manager. The detailed job description is available upon request. Further information available from the Regional MEL Advisor based in Nepal, Anoj Chhetri, ach@oxfam.dk. 

The candidate will be part of the matrix team covering all four regions of EOL, the Education Advisors Virtual Team. 

How to apply

Only applications submitted via Oxfam Denmark’s online recruitment system will be accepted. Please submit your application via the ‘send application’ button and include your motivation letter and CV.

Application deadline: 23rd March 2025 at 23.59 CET. 
Expected interview date: End of March 2025 
Start date: May 2025 or as soon as possible.

Kindly note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted, usually within two weeks of the application deadline.

Oxfam Denmark is committed to equal employment opportunity. We therefore encourage everybody – irrespective of age, gender and of religious, sexual, national, or ethnic affiliation – to apply for this position.

About Oxfam

Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty. That means we tackle the inequality that keeps people poor. Together we save, protect and rebuild lives. When disaster strikes, we help people build better lives for themselves, and for others. We take on issues like land rights, climate change and discrimination against women. And we won’t stop until every person on the planet can enjoy life free from poverty.

Oxfam Denmark is part of the international Oxfam confederation of 21 organisations (affiliates) working together with partners and local communities in the areas of humanitarian, development and campaigning, in more than 60 countries. All our work is led by three core values: empowerment, accountability, and inclusiveness.

Oxfam is committed to preventing any type of unwanted behaviour at work including sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, lack of integrity and financial misconduct; and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults. Oxfam expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment through our code of conduct. We place high priority on ensuring that only those who share and demonstrate our values are recruited to work for us.

Our commitment to safeguarding

Oxfam is committed to preventing any type of unwanted behavior at work including sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, lack of integrity and financial misconduct; and committed to promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults. Oxfam expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment through our code of conduct. We place a high priority on ensuring that only those who share and demonstrate our values are recruited to work for us.

Note: All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and may be subject to appropriate screening checks, which can include criminal records and terrorism finance checks. Oxfam International Secretariat also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this Scheme, if a job applicant has been employed by another member of the scheme, we will request information from that organization about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.