Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager At Ubongo

REPORTS TO: Head Of Education
LOCATION: Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania/South Africa

UBONGO is Africa’s leading producer of kids’ edutainment. As a non-profit social enterprise, we create fun, localised and multi-platform educational content that helps kids learn, and leverage their learning to change their lives. Ubongo reaches millions of families across Africa through accessible technologies like TV, radio and mobile phones. Our show’s ​Ubongo Kids and Akili and Me currently air in 31 countries across Africa, in Swahili, English, French, and Kinyarwanda. We are currently adapting the shows to even more languages including Kikuyu, Luo, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and Twi. This is a great time to join an organization that’s rapidly growing across the continent, and work with a creative and impact-driven team committed to reaching as many families in Africa with life-changing edutainment.

We are looking for a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Manager. Working at Ubongo won’t be easy, but it will challenge and excite you with lots of responsibilities, plenty of fun, and give you the opportunity to impact the lives of millions of kids every day.

We are a learning organization. Therefore it is expected that you will take the lead (with support from CEO, Education and Research team as well as the Operations team) to develop an organizational MEL strategy that measures (amongst other things) specific learning outcomes.

• Owning overall MEL strategy and coordinating implementation with both the Ubongo team and our research partners.
• Leveraging lean data for continual monitoring in situations where we cannot afford to do in-depth studies.
• Linking our learning from impact evaluations that are done to the internal goal setting that we do (OKRs).

2.​Leading the team on evaluating the educational impact of our products (as well as reach), so that we can prove that we are improving learning outcomes for children and their communities
Main Activities:

• Ensuring that our products are rigorously evaluated, and that learning from this testing are fed back into product development
• As well as studying the data we have you will need to be able to create ways in which the data that needs to be studied can be gathered. So that means creating new data gathering methodologies.
• Managing external research partners (including University of Maryland, and graduate student researchers) conducting research and assessments of Ubongo edutainment in various geographies across Africa
• Creating a reporting framework for partners who use our content in their programs.

3. ​Analyzing, summarizing and sharing results and learnings across the organization and externally

Main Activities:

• Analyzing, summarizing and sharing results & learnings internally with our team (in such a way that is easy to consume) and externally with partners, to ensure that everyone is up to date.
• Keeping the Ubongo team up-to-date on best practices and relevant work in MEL, and making sure we stay on the cutting edge!
• Suggest to the team the most appropriate MEL software/tools that can be used
• Training Ubongoers and building on the existing capacity of our MEL in the company and the importance of establishing the correct measurement tools
• Bringing together all of our previous M&E work (including experimental studies, longitudinal research, surveys and reach data) for internal learning.

REQUIREMENT​:

TO BE A MATCH, YOU’LL NEED TO BE:

• Ready and able to take on all the challenges listed above (and many more, down the line) as we scale! This probably means you’ll have a Master’s Degree or PhD., with extensive research experience. But we’re more interested in your ability to get the job done than your qualifications.
• Confident and knowledgeable in study design, data analysis and field implementation of research projects.
• MUST​have experience in educational research and impact evaluation, as well as communicating impact to various stakeholders, using leveraged data.
• A task juggler. There is a LOT going on at Ubongo, and you will need to be able to work across our projects and products to manage overall company M&E.
• Organized! We have a lot of data, studies and different projects, and you will be in charge of keeping all of this data and reporting in order!
• Ideally, located in either Tanzania or South Africa, or have the right to work in either of these countries.
• Able to speak and work in English. Proficiency in Kiswahili (or willingness to learn!) is desirable – we’re a bilingual office.
• Good at dealing with ambiguity and able to figure things out for yourself.
• Willing to speak up for what’s right, when you see wrong, or when you think there might be a better way.
• Someone who loves kids. They’re why we do what we do. They’re running around our office all the time. Our kids’ music and videos will become part of your life (and constantly stuck in your head). Be willing to wear many hats

Phew! You made it through that. The good thing is that there are also perks, like delicious healthy lunch at the office, health insurance, and you get to watch cartoons at work. APPLY BY CLICKING THE APPLY BUTTON​.

This position is a rolling hire that will remain open until the position has been filled. Please note that only applicants who apply using this online form will be considered. Those who come directly to the office with a CV or who email their CV to us will simply be referred back to this online form.
So please ​save yourself​ ​time and effort by simply sticking to this form. THANKS!