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Program Manager – Foundational Numeracy with Equity and Inclusion Focus

  • Company

    Vikramshila Education Resource Society

  • Location

    Bihar

  • Employment Type

    Full-Time

  • Functional Category

    Programme Management & Implementation

  • Experience

    8 - 10 years

  • Date Posted

    27-Jun-2025

About Vikramshila Education Resource Society

Vikramshila Education Resource Society a non-profit organization established in 1989 is dedicated to enhancing school education particularly in early childhood education literacy numeracy and primary and secondary learning. With a focus on curricular and co-curricular areas Vikramshila collaborates with state systems to drive curricular reform resource development capacity building and on-the-ground model creation for strategic demonstration and scaling initiatives. Headquartered in Kolkata Vikramshila operates field offices in Lucknow Guwahati Pune Ranchi and Patna impacting schools Anganwadi centers madrasas and community learning centres across West Bengal Bihar Assam Jharkhand Odisha Uttar Pradesh Chhattisgarh Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

Overview of the Role

The Program Manager will lead a three-year foundational numeracy initiative grounded in the belief that equity in education—particularly for girls first-generation learners and children from marginalized communities—begins with inclusive meaningful learning experiences in the early grades. The Manager will orchestrate a comprehensive field-anchored program that works closely with government systems schools communities and technical institutions to ensure every child develops strong confident numeracy skills. The role involves building a collaborative ecosystem that links strong ground-level practice with strategic state and national-level efforts to influence policy and institutional sustainability. A deep understanding of and belief in the power of education for the improvement of lives of children in the margins especially girls is desirable.

Job Description

- Program Design & Ground Implementation
Lead the design and on-ground implementation of a gender-inclusive context-responsive foundational numeracy program across schools in Baisi Block Purnea with a sharp focus on equity multilingualism and reaching the most marginalised—especially girls first-generation learners and children from excluded communities.
Integrate the principles of NEP 2020 NIPUN Bharat NCF 2023 and Bihar’s state education policies into day-to-day programming—ensuring alignment with national and local frameworks while remaining rooted in the realities of classrooms and communities.
Deeply engage with the socio-political linguistic and economic milieu of Purnea to identify barriers to learning and co-create culturally meaningful pedagogical strategies (e.g. oral math community math multilingual activities low-cost TLMs).
Ensure robust implementation through detailed planning effective budgeting coordination with field staff and responsive course correction based on field insights and data.
Provide direct leadership to the block-based team of School Coordinators facilitating integrated work across teacher support community mobilization and system engagement.

- Monitoring Learning and Adaptive Management
Establish simple field-friendly systems for ongoing monitoring of student learning teacher practice and school-community engagement—particularly tracking progress among girls and marginalised learners.
Use evidence and field insights to drive adaptive planning refine strategies and ensure relevance and responsiveness in program delivery.
Build documentation practices across the team to capture micro-level shifts and innovations linking field-based learnings to broader advocacy and systems dialogue.
Collaborate with the MEL and Strategic Communication teams to generate data-driven stories and advocacy resources that reflect real measurable change in classrooms and communities.

- Stakeholder Engagement & Strategic Advocacy
Facilitate strong ongoing engagement with teachers headmasters parents (especially mothers) local leaders and panchayat bodies to deepen ownership and visibility of the numeracy agenda at community and block levels.
Anchor a multi-level platform for technical exchange system dialogue and collaboration among educators civil society partners and government stakeholders across Baisi Purnea Patna and Delhi.
Plan and coordinate strategic convenings field immersions and collaborative workshops to amplify local voices and influence direction-setting at district and state levels.
Contribute to the development of regional policy briefs technical notes and joint working groups that advocate for inclusive numeracy and scaleable classroom-based innovations.

- Systemic Integration & Institutionalization
Work closely with Bihar’s education system actors—at cluster block district and state levels—to align with government priorities and embed inclusive numeracy practices within existing processes and structures.
Identify opportunities to institutionalize teacher training classroom tools and community engagement strategies developed under the program into government mechanisms (e.g. CRC reviews FLN modules community-based monitoring).
Launch and facilitate a local Community of Practice (CoP) for teachers education officials and practitioners focused on inclusive and gender-equitable numeracy—anchored in local experience and peer learning.
Represent the program in state and national forums to share contextualized insights and promote the need for grounded equity-focused solutions in foundational learning.

- Documentation & Learning
Support evidence-based decision making through high-quality documentation reporting and analysis.
Share program learnings through briefs events and public platforms to inform the broader education ecosystem.
Collaborate with Numeracy resource persons MEL specialist Gender Specialist and Strategic Communication specialist for evidence-based policy-driven advocacy

Required & Preferred Qualifications

Skill

- Experience with consortia and networks in Education and FLN space will be given strong preference
- Strong understanding of gender and inclusion principles in program design and implementation
- Experience of prior engagement with education programs and state systems in Bihar
- Strong background of research learning and evidence-based documentation for advocacy
- Proven track record of policy engagement cross-sector collaboration and technical knowledge of early numeracy pedagogy and principles
- Strong leadership and facilitation skills; ability to bridge field realities with policy-level thinking.
- Willingness to travel and engage at both grassroots and strategic levels.

Education

Masters in Mathematics Science Economics Social Sciences Public Policy Education or related fields.

Experience

8–10 years of experience managing large-scale systemic education programs with strong components of equity government engagement and scale-up around early years and primary years learning

Company Policies

Leave Policies

Paid Time Off

Learning & Development

Upskilling