BACKGROUND:
The International Rescue Committee’s mission is to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. Founded over 90 years ago, the IRC is a leading humanitarian and development organization with presence in more than 40 countries. Across contexts, the IRC is committed to delivering innovative, high-impact programs tailored to the needs of communities affected by crisis.
The IRC has been working in Uganda since 1998 supporting refugees, vulnerable host communities, and various institutions in the country notably the government, community-based organizations, civil society, and the private sector. Currently, the IRC in Uganda has a presence across five sub-regions and six refugee settlements, implementing programming in the sectors of health, protection and rule of law (PRoL), women’s protection and empowerment (WPE), economic recovery and development (ERD), and education. IRC Uganda also implements cross-cutting programming focused on systems strengthening and accountability to affected persons.
Job Overview/ Summary:
PlayMatters (PM) phase 3 is a 4-year education initiative (2026-2030) with a goal of improving the well-being and holistic learning outcomes of pre-primary and primary school aged children (ages 3-12+), including those who are affected by conflict and crisis, in Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda by strengthening education systems to deliver quality education services using active teaching and learning through play. PM prioritizes strengthening education systems to be resilient and scaling impact by working with and through existing systems rather than establishing parallel systems. PM has three main outcomes: Outcome 1: Education systems have increased capacity, uptake, and coordination of Learning through Play (LtP) as a teaching method; Outcome 2: School-aged children in refugee hosting and post-crisis recovery zones have increased access to quality learning opportunities in safe environments; Outcome 3: School-aged children’s holistic development is protected in times of acute crisis.
The PlayMatters Technical Education Advisor will provide technical leadership and support related to the adaptation, development, testing, and improvement of teacher-focused active teaching and learning content and approaches for PlayMatters education technical teams based in Uganda, Ethiopia and South Sudan. The TA will work closely with the PlayMatters global, regional and country-based technical teams from IRC and partners, as well as the leadership of PlayMatters in each country. The TA will lead an ongoing content review, analysis, and adaptation process in partnership with country teams to ensure that existing content is being leveraged, adapted and improved as needed to support Playmatters objectives, including working towards scale of PlayMatters’ core package within government systems. The TA will also collaborate directly with technical teams at the country level to ensure that educational content is co-designed with relevant system actors in alignment with the overall project vision, framework, definitions and parameters. The TA will guide the multi-media team to develop and contextualize evidence based multi-media solutions to facilitate teacher capacity building and reach more learners. The TA will collaborate with the Research and MEL teams to maximize learning around education content at regular intervals. The TA will also collaborate with the Policy and Advocacy team to support PlayMatters’ partnership with system actors and external partners in each country. Coordinating across partners and stakeholders to develop a shared vision will be central to success.
Major Responsibilities:
The PlayMatters TA for Education is responsible for providing technical leadership in the following key areas of responsibility:
1. Content:
- Ensure that PlayMatters’ definition of Learning through Play as an active teaching method is clearly understood and implemented in practice through content, facilitation, and teaching and learning materials across locations and partners.
- Provide technical guidance and support to country teams in designing and implementing a strategy to review, select, adapt, co-create, test and improve active teaching and learning content, including trainer-facing, teacher-facing and instructional leader-facing content, that adheres to the PlayMatters vision and framework, with a goal of scaling this content within government and humanitarian education systems
- Provide technical guidance to the multimedia enhancements, ensuring it is aligned with country-level content strategies and support development and testing of digital solutions in line with identified needs, including distance learning solutions for educators and system actors.
- Track and analyze the use and adaptations of content across the PlayMatters project to identify key trends, gaps and areas for improvement.
- Develop functional systems to support collaboration and sharing of content and processes for content design, adaptation and improvement at the regional, cross-country and cross-partner level.
2. Implementation and Quality Improvement:
- Provide technical guidance to country teams in designing and implementing programs that integrate active teaching and learning content, ensuring that programs are evidence-based, cost-effective and scalable.
- Provide technical guidance to support the implementation of quality improvement through supervision, coaching and monitoring and testing of improvement strategies, working in close collaboration with the country teams and RMEAL teams.
- Track and analyze the different types of implementation models used across the three countries and assess trends and variations.
3. Supporting Scaling and Sustaining LtP Programming:
- Work with the Policy and Advocacy (P&A) team and the country teams to ensure content and program models are aligned with local or national standards for early childhood development, pre-primary education and primary education.
- Collaborate with the P&A team to work with systems actors to ensure LtP/ active teaching and learning is well understood and integrated into education policies, systems, structures, and strategies as we generate evidence and learning.
- Collaborate with the EiE team to ensure that education models adapted for crisis interventions are aligned to the general project model
- Support country teams in engaging in co-design processes with systems actors where strategic opportunities arise to advance the PlayMatters vision and ambition.
- In collaboration with the PlayMatters Senior Management Team (SMT), identify opportunities to expand, deepen and sustain the reach and impact of PlayMatters beyond the lifetime of the LEGO Foundation funded grant.
- Actively identify opportunities to collaborate with partnerships for scale
- Coordinate and facilitate uptake of various scale components of the PlayMatters core package
4. External and internal representation
- Ensure that the PlayMatters senior management from the IRC and partners are aware of successes and challenges, and provide regular updates Guide and assist in the writing and development of reports and other documents, for the donor and for internal and/or external audiences.
- Raise understanding and the profile of the PlayMatters Project within the region, both internally and externally.
Identify and participate in strategic forums in education that offer high value and returns for resources invested. - Stay abreast of the global and regional policy environment and identify critical entry points for IRC to influence polices to be able to achieve our goals and outcomes
Key Working Relationships:
- Position Reports to: Deputy Project Director, Technical
- Indirect Reporting: Country Policy and Advocacy coordinators
- Other Internal and/or external contacts:
- Internal: Headquarters & Global Field Teams – multiple departments Senior Policy Advisor, Education TU, Global Practice Lead, Foundational Learning
Education and Technical Competencies:
- Master’s degree in education, Child Development or related field, or equivalent level of experience and expertise. At least 5-7 years working in education with a focus on active teaching and learning methodologies, including in refugee-hosting or crisis-affected contexts
Skills and Competencies
- Extensive experience working in teacher professional development, curriculum design, developing content and/or overseeing program design for large-scale programs focused on active teaching and learning methodologies or a related field
- Primary or pre-primary school teaching experience
- Proven ability to provide high-quality technical assistance, guidance and coaching to staff and partners
- Experience working in conflict and crisis settings, and knowledge of humanitarian programming
- Self-directed, able to independently set priorities and solve problems with minimal guidance
- Excellent interpersonal and oral and written communication skills
- Demonstrated ability to successfully work in a fast-paced environment, within and across departments/functions and develop positive relationships with locally and remote based staff.
- Experience working in East Africa in the education sector
- Fluent in written and oral English; knowledge of other regional language preferred
Working Environment:
- Standard office working environment
- Travel required 25-40%
- The position is based in East Africa
NB: This advert will close on 17 June 2026.
PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
All International Rescue Committee workers must adhere to the core values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards for Professional Conduct. Our Standards are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Safeguarding, Conflicts of Interest, Fiscal Integrity, and Reporting Wrongdoing and Protection from Retaliation. IRC is committed to take all necessary preventive measures and create an environment where people feel safe, and to take all necessary actions and corrective measures when harm occurs. IRC builds teams of professionals who promote critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity to deliver the best possible services to our clients.
