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Position: Program Impact Lead
Reports to: Director of Programs
Location: Flexible within Sub-Saharan Africa (with periodic travel to program countries)
Deadline: 8th August 2025
About the Organization
TaRL Africa initiative is hosted by Empower Learning Africa, a not-for-profit organisation registered and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, with teams in Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Zambia and locally registered offices in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. TaRL Africa began as a joint venture by Pratham and J-PAL in 2019, with the goal of supporting governments and organisations across Africa to accelerate children’s foundational skill learning using the evidence-based “Teaching at the Right Level” (TaRL) approach. TaRL Africa’s vision is for every child across Africa to have foundational skills so that they can have a better future. Our mission is to ensure education systems effectively equip children with these foundational skills.
We support governments and organisations in over 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to design, deliver and scale impactful TaRL programmes while learning and sharing how the approach can be improved for different contexts. Together with partners, TaRL Africa has reached over five million children with TaRL programming.
Role Purpose
The Program Impact Lead is a senior member of the Programs team, responsible for driving continuous program improvement and fostering an organizational culture of learning and evidence use. The Program Impact lead is responsible for ensuring that we are always improving the program effectively to meet our mission of improved foundational learning for all. They will act as a key bridge between evidence and implementation.
Major roles and responsibilities:
1. Program Learning and Improvement (70%)
- Drive organizational improvement cycles by identifying key implementation challenges, incorporating what is working, and learning about how to fix what doesn’t, including ensuring best practices are documented, shared, and integrated into standard operating procedures.
- Lead the program improvement component of annual and mid-term program reviews at country and regional levels.
- Facilitate cross-country learning by synthesizing internal and external insights on effective foundational learning programming.
- Champion the uptake of innovations and program adaptations with the potential to improve impact at scale, including adapting programs based on RCT results and other evidence to maximize impact.
- Project manage strategic program enhancement trials
2. Strategic Knowledge Leadership (15%)
- Serve as TaRL Africa’s internal focal point on program effectiveness — curating and communicating learnings, innovations, and research findings relevant to program design and delivery.
- Maintain an accessible and up-to-date knowledge base on what works for foundational learning, drawing from global literature and TaRL Africa’s own evidence base.
- Work with the Research, Learning, and Evidence (RLE) team to facilitate knowledge-sharing across teams, ensuring effective replication and scaling of effective interventions
3. Research and Innovation Input (15%)
- Collaborate with country and technical teams to conceptualize, draft, and review proposals that advance TaRL Africa’s learning agenda, including innovations, research, and MEL systems strengthening.
- Serve as a core contributor to the organization’s Learning Agenda, ensuring alignment with program strategy and country needs.
- Provide strategic input on research questions, study design, and the use of results for program improvement in collaboration with Program Design and Pedagogy as well as Research and Learning teams and research partners.
Requirements:
- Master’s degree in public policy, education, international development, or related field.
- Minimum 7–10 years of experience in program design, implementation, or research, with at least 3 years in a strategic or learning-focused role.
- Strong analytical and synthesis skills with the ability to make complex ideas accessible.
- Demonstrated experience in using evidence to inform programmatic decisions and drive improvements.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Experience working in or with governments or education-focused organizations in Africa is strongly preferred.
TaRL Africa Values
- We put children’s learning first.
- We are always learning, improving, and innovating.
- We are locally rooted for high-quality delivery and sustainable impact.
- We are kind, respectful ,and collaborative.
- We are proactive, committed to integrity and doing our best each day.
TaRL Africa provides a nationally peer-benchmarked compensation package aligned with organizational salary scales, taking into account both qualifications and professional experience.
TaRL Africa is an equal-opportunity employer committed to having a diverse workforce.
