🇸🇱 Job Vacancy @ Rising Academies – Rori Program Associate
About the job
The Context:
Across the developing world, more children than ever are in school - but they are not learning. A recent study estimated that less than 1% of school children in Sub-Saharan Africa attend a school where the teaching meets basic standards of quality. At Rising Academies, we're changing that, and we want your help. Our mission is to create the best schools and the most powerful teaching and learning tools for the people that need it most. We're one of the fastest-growing quality-focused education companies in Africa, and a Certified B Corp®.
About us:
We are a growing network of inspiring schools in West Africa. Our mission is to unleash the full potential of every student, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and character to succeed in further study, work, and day-to-day life.We own and operate our own great value private schools, partner with governments to improve the quality of public school systems, and use our content and technology to help other education providers. Founded in Sierra Leone in 2014, we provided emergency education to children kept out of school by the Ebola Epidemic before opening our first school in April 2015. Today, we serve more than 250,000 students across more than 900 schools in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and now Rwanda.
Through great curriculum, intensive teacher coaching and actionable data, we help teachers and school leaders bring quality to every classroom. And we get results: independent studies show Rising students make more than twice the progress of their peers in comparable schools.
We have recently closed our Series A funding round and won a multi-year, multi-million dollar grant to accelerate the development of our digital ed-tech solutions for low-income students across the globe. Our ‘Bambai' suite of digital tools already includes a school information system, school observation tool, chatbot tutor, accelerated learning program and teacher coaching app. This is just the start. We want to expand our range of digital products to help improve the quality of education for millions of students around the world. If you want to make a difference to the lives of teachers, students and parents, then we are the right place for you.
About the role:
Rising Academies is seeking to hire a dynamic Rori Program Associate in Freetown, Sierra Leone, whose primary responsibility will be to manage the in-country operations of Rori, an educational chat-bot that works over WhatsApp. The Rori Program Associate will work closely with the Head of Digital Learning & Partnerships, in-country staff, and the Rising Central team to ensure the successful roll out/implementation of a pilot program run in a subset of our schools. In addition to the pilot implementation coordination, the Program Associate will be responsible for monitoring and evaluation following pilot launch.
The Rori Program Associate will:
- Plan and manage program launch and implementation, including logistics, device setup, training
- Conduct qualitative and quantitative research through running pilot exercises and collecting data throughout the course of the pilot
- Supervise and monitor data collection to ensure high-quality data
- Run data quality checks and address issues with data collected
- Assist in data cleaning, preliminary analysis, and report creation, and ensure ready access to all data for researchers and/or supervisors
- Maintain accurate records of interviews, safeguarding the confidentiality of subjects as necessary
- Provide timely updates and responses to partner organisations, and participate in meetings with key stakeholders coordinating with partner schools implementing the program
Location and reporting:
This is a full-time position, based out of Rising's offices in Freetown. The role will involve travel in and around the Western Urban Area. The Rori Program Associate will report to Risings Head of Digital Learning & Partnerships and will work closely with members of the data-team and FCC team.
Application Deadline: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. The plan start-date for this role is 1st March 2025.
Requirements
Qualifications and Experience:
- Degree in economics, public policy, or other social science disciplines
- Experience managing field work/staff strongly preferred
- Demonstrated ability to manage high-level relationships
- Experience with data management, and data cleaning
- A minimum of 3 years of work experience
- Excellent organisational skills; ability to successfully complete assigned tasks and meet deadlines
- Strong oral and written communication skills in the English language
About You:
- You demonstrate people skills; must be able to collaborate effectively with diverse personalities and skill sets, and enjoy constructive conflict
- Flexible, self-motivated, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and a team player
- You can take initiative and problem-solve when challenges arise
- You are comfortable working with senior leadership, reporting on data and outcomes
- You are passionate about improving the quality of education across Africa
Benefits
Compensation and Benefits:
We offer a competitive salary and benefits package. We regularly benchmark our compensation against comparable businesses, social ventures and non-profits.
Rising's goal is to be transparent about salaries at all levels of the organisation and have a standard, global pay scale for all positions that is non-negotiable.
The benefits we offer are built to have a strong added value on our staff's well-being and we are excited to discuss this further with you in the process.
Rising is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to providing a work environment that is inclusive and free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions are based on individual qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, national origin, family or parental status, veteran or disability status.
Rising is committed to creating a culture within the organisation, and its schools, that recognises the importance of safeguarding children and prioritising their rights and needs. We strive to uphold international safeguarding standards, and keep the safety and well-being of our students at the heart of what we do. All Rising employees are expected to abide by the Child Protection Policy, and to have the same level of commitment to protect children from harm. Safeguarding questions are part of every interview process and all Rising employees undergo reference checks before joining the organisation.
