Senior Project Associate

Senior Project Associate

Job Description

Senior Project Associate

ICDS & ECCE

October 2024 | Lucknow

Position title: Senior Project Associate, ICDS & ECCE

Location: Lucknow

Reporting to: Project Manager

About Centre for Learning Resources (CLR)

Centre for Learning Resources (CLR) is one of the oldest Indian non-profit educational institutions of the Society for Educational Improvement and Innovation, based out of Pune, founded by India's veteran educator couple Dr. John Kurrien & Ms. Zakiya Kurrien. CLR has been working in the domains of early childhood care and development (ECCD), Foundational literacy numeracy (FLN) & English language for first-generation learners (EFL) since 1984.







We have supported a wide range of government organizations and NGOs across the country including Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan. Offshore engagements have included Indonesia & Nepal.

CLR’s vision is to assist in the creation of a more just and equitable society through the integrated development of children, who come from marginalized communities, such that they grow up in child-centred environments that nurture their holistic growth and learning. Our mission is to build large-scale capacities of the ICDS systems, which are charged with this responsibility so that they can deliver effectively. This includes government machinery, civil society organizations, and NGOs.

(For more information log onto http://www.clrindia.org/)

About ICDS & ECCD Program

CLR has run successful Programs with ICDS over the years in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Bihar & Uttar Pradesh.





This program aims to develop the learning and well-being of children in the age group of 0-6 years through the ICDS setup of the state. The programs also have focused on District level and Sub-district level officers - District Project Officers (DPO’s) and Child Development Project Officers (CDPO’s) of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) for enhancing the quality of integrated early childhood developmental inputs available to children of 0-6 years of age. Over the years, we have worked on providing ECD, nutritional and health support to children at the ECCD centres, ensuring the quality of the ECCE activities being conducted at Anganwadi. Centres and also worked with the community to build their knowledge on providing integrated care for children. As we enter into the 40th year of our operations,





our programs are now being scaled to a larger number of Anganwadis across Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra to create a wider impact on more number of children.

The criticality of all-round developmental inputs (health, nutrition, psycho-social, emotional, cognitive) during the first six years of a human being’s life and the extreme difficulty of making up for any deficits later in life has been well-established. A large majority of children, especially from the less-privileged sections, depend on ICDS to receive these inputs. Anganwadi workers (AWWs), Supervisors, DPO’s and CDPO’s, therefore, have the potential of causing a large-scale societal transformation through the work they do by enabling a larger number of our under-privileged children to lead more fulfilling lives.







CLR’s ICDS & ECCD program comprises of two interventions aimed at supporting the youngest child population and their families in under-resourced communities of Lucknow:

1. Shishuvan Day-care Implementation Program:

1.1. Build caregiver capacity for providing nurturing care and education to 60 children between 3-6 years of age at the CLR’s ECD centre

1.2. Provide community-based intervention support to 15+ lactating & pregnant women in the Vinayakpuram community of Lucknow

1.3. Building teacher’s capacity on ECE pedagogy for effective implementation of activities in classes.

2. Anganwadi Capacity Building Program:

2.1. Scale Component: Build capacities of 500 Anganwadis (AWWs) in Lucknow (5 CDP Offices) for delivery of ECCE for 10,500+ children

2.2.





Depth Component: Identify & develop 20+10 Anganwadis (1 per supervisor) as a model Anganwadi & training center for five CDPOs (Chinhat, Gosaiganj, Kakori, BKT & Alamnagar)

3. Key Roles and Responsibilities

The Senior Project Associate will have the following roles and responsibilities:

Planning and Execution (30%)

- Plan/design the overall project strategy in conjunction with the Project Manager and Head of Programs
- Support Anganwadi workers, Supervisors and CDPOs with their development as per the project plan and through regular observations and debriefs.
- Develop a coaching and mentoring plan for CLR’s ECD centre teachers as per the overall project plan.

Content Development and Training Support (40%)







- Develop new training content and enhance existing teaching-learning materials.
- Collaborate with the video production team to create engaging learning materials and collaterals, and support social media engagement
- Assist the Project Manager in proper documentation of the program, including print, video, and audio materials.
- Conduct independent training sessions delivering content effectively and ensuring detailed knowledge transfer.
- Develop model Anganwadi centres through targeted training inputs, regular observations, and direct coaching of Anganwadi workers and helpers.
- Train and mentor the ECD centre teachers and staff members on the effective delivery of Early childhood education curriculum.

External Relationships (20%)







- Liaise with the Women and Child Development (WCD) department, funding partners and other CLR government partners, and
- Attend periodic meetings with DPO, CDPOs and Supervisors
- Provide regular updates about CLR’s initiative and any program-related
- developments to the government partners and funding partners.
- Work effectively with various stakeholders such as Anganwadi workers, Anganwadi helpers and Supervisors.
- Organise and document feedback from meetings with government and funding partner

Monitoring and Evaluation (10%)

- Collect most significant change stories from the field on a monthly and quarterly basis that reflect the output/outcome of the project.
- Assist in the implementation of effective data collection for pre and post






- intervention assessment as well as ongoing monitoring.
- Support with ongoing documentation of the project, conduct baseline, endline and other relevant assessments.
- Generate and analyse data points for your team pertinent to envisaged program outcomes.
- Document the outputs (short terms and long-term) and share them with the project manager.

Qualifications

- Necessary

- Fluency in Hindi & English
- Qualification and experience in child/human development, social work, education or related fields. A Master’s in education/ECCD/management is preferable
- Experience in developing modules for training/workshops
- Minimum work experience of 5 years in ECE-based implementation programs o Strong written communication skills including documentation
- Comfortable working on MS PowerPoint and Google Sheets / MS Excel

- Desirable

- 2-3 years of experience in the education sector, preferably working with teachers and school systems
- Relevant work experience in the domain of Early Childhood Education or FLN projects.
- Experience in working with/exposure to the public education/health system
- Understanding of issues in scaling up development intervention.

Location & Remuneration

Location: Lucknow

Compensation: Apart from being a part of a young and dynamic learning team, the individual will receive a healthy compensation at par with the non-profit sector benchmark for this position, commensurate with the individual’s prior experience and qualifications.

The current compensation band offered, based on fit and experience is 6 to 7 lakh INR per annum CTC.

Note: CLR is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Prohibits Discrimination and Harassment of Any Kind. We do not discriminate on the basis of caste, race, religion, colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other non-merit factor.

We heartily welcome new members to join us and work closely with the experienced and diverse leadership team at CLR!

Leadership Team

Madhukar Reddy Banuri, Director

A Teach For India Fellow from the first cohort in 2009, comes with close to 15 years of experience in the field of education policy and implementation. He is also the Founder and Director of Leadership For Equity. A graduate of BITS Pilani, Madhukar has been a 2019 Ashoka Fellow & 2015 Acumen Fellow. He has also been a part of multiple state and national government committees and mentors young entrepreneurs running education non-profits in India.

Chetan Bhangdia, Associate Director

Chetan Bhangdia has extensive experience spanning more than 25 years in conceptualizing, building and delivering data and technology capabilities spanning strategy, programs, products, services, team set up and operations. He is an Engineer with a postgraduate degree in management. He takes care of select program verticals, production, research, M&E; and all the organisational development functions at CLR.

Ahona Krishna, Head of Programs & Implementation

With over 14 years of experience in education, Ahona oversees CLR's ECCE projects in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, focusing on improving ECE delivery in Anganwadis and enhancing the skills of Anganwadi workers and ICDS staff. Her career began as a teacher with Teach for India in 2011, followed by roles as a teacher trainer and curriculum lead in low-income private and government schools. She also supported in implementing MH state’s ECE curriculum in Pune's Anganwadis in collaboration with UNICEF. Ahona holds a master's degree in Sociology of Education from Christ University, Bangalore and has collaborated with Ed-tech firms like XSEED, LEAD School, and Classklap to develop pre-primary curriculum.

Anurata Tribhuvan, Head of Production & Media and English Programs

Anurata comes with 18+ years of experience in the field of production and media communication. She has a double Master's in Communication Media for Children from SNDT University and in Psychology from Pune University. Apart from being a CLR veteran, she has worked with SFM Radio, Star Pravah TV, ICC for Kids & Natives Communications. Over the years she has produced 800+ modules in all formats of e-learning content modules and video productions.

Mayuresh Bhoyte, Head of Programs & Operations

Mayuresh Bhoyte is passionate about understanding and empowering the public education systems. A computer science engineer turned primary school teacher, Mayuresh is a 2014 Teach For India Fellow and has spent over 8 years working closely with students, teachers, principals, and officers in the Maharashtra education system. He has also completed his post-graduation diploma in Organisational Leadership and Change Management from TISS, Mumbai. He currently leads the District Transformation work in various districts in Maharashtra.

Sufia Azmat, Head of Research and Monitoring

Dr. Sufia Azmat has eighteen years of experience around Teaching, Curriculum Development, Research, and Policy Practice. After completing a Masters in Social Work from Aligarh Muslim University, she secured a Doctorate in Social Work and Child Care Practice from Jamia Millia Islamia. She has authored 10 papers around ECD concerns and participated in several international and national conferences. She has led 2 major projects funded by ICSSR and NHRC and many minor projects. The thrust areas of her research and practice remain Early Childhood Development, Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, Maternal and Child Health, disaster and resilience, and Parenting using a Rights-Based Approach.