Research & Design Lead- Shikshāgraha

About Mantra4Change

 A decade ago, Mantra4Change stepped into the education ecosystem with a vision to transform public education in India. We believe that in a unique nation like India, our approach to quality education cannot be exclusive of systemic reforms and collective action. We work with stakeholders in the system especially in positions of leadership to enable school improvement across the states we work with. A key question that drives us is - how might we enable enriching experiences for children at scale, with speed, and sustainably? Committed to enabling education leaders to drive sustainable improvements across 150,000 schools by 2025, we aim to ensure that every child has the skills and knowledge to thrive in an ever-evolving world.

Our Programs are designed to improve and impact critical challenges:

• at ground level like teacher capacity building - Transform
• at system level like empowering leaders with administrative and academic tools - Enable
• at ecosystem level by inspiring thought leaders and entrepreneurs to build a collective of changemakers - Inspire

Read more - www.mantra4change.org

About Shikshāgraha

As part of the Inspire initiative, Mantra4Change builds partnerships to amplify our ideas and approaches across the educational ecosystem. One of our key initiatives under this umbrella is the Shikshagraha movement, which aims to catalyze collective action across 100 districts in India to enhance the quality of education. By 2025, it seeks to impact 40 million children through decentralized school improvement programs. Shikshāgraha focuses on empowering school leaders, fostering collaboration between district education departments and local NGOs, leveraging India's open-source technology platform, DIKSHA, for documenting and disseminating best practices. Key objectives include improving student outcomes, enhancing school infrastructure, building systemic capacity through community-driven, need-based solutions, and ensuring sustainable and context-specific educational reforms.

About the role

The Design and Research Lead role is aimed at understanding the grass-root challenges, learning from research, and designing innovative solutions for stakeholders. This role is most suited for those exploring opportunities in doing primary and/or secondary research and in leading program design. 

Roles and Responsibilities

• Research and develop tools to identify the needs of schools and teachers
• Evaluate underlying causes for gaps in implementation, collaborate to respond effectively, and contribute to customizing the program
• Design pilot-ready solutions for problems, challenges, and needs identified through research
• Collaborate with partners for piloting solutions, collecting data on the pilot, and refining solutions based on the pilot
• Create case studies and position papers on the solutions
• Design strategies for the dissemination of solutions
• Identify and forge new external partnerships with organizations/people aimed at learning from existing resources
• Participate in meetings, workshops, or related forums/events that contribute to the development and growth of Mantra
• Create learning environments and build capacity within the team through shared learning, unconditional support, and strong self and peer accountability

Experience & Competencies Required

• Must have a minimum experience of 3 years and a degree in education or equivalent.
• Must be ready to travel on a need basis.
• Prior experience in leading design efforts for adult education in general and school leadership development, in particular, would be preferred. 
• Must have experience teaching in low-income schools or government schools.
• Must have prior experience in primary and secondary research and should be a problem solver.
• Willingness to learn in the face of uncertainty and difficult situations.
• Must have effective planning skills and time-task management.
• Must have a good command of English (Read and Write).

What we offer

• Opportunity to work closely with different education organizations globally and in India.
• Exposure to different field locations in India.
• Learning and development support to build capacity.
• 24 paid leave and 12 calendar holidays.
• Medical insurance - individual and dependents.
• One menstruation leave each month for women employees.
• L&D fun to pursue learning opportunities related to the job.

Remuneration: An annual CTC of INR 6 Lakhs onwards (depending on competency and experience) 

Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka/ Patna, Bihar/ Shillong, Meghalaya with need based travel  

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