Manager - Schools of Excellence

The Tamil Nadu (TN) School Education Department has launched Schools of Excellence initiative to enhance the quality of holistic education in identified large schools. As the schools achieve outcomes the goal is to form networks in their region for their performance to feed into the schools of the region and enhance their learning outcomes as well.

One school each in 28 districts have been objectively selected across the State to be transformed into Schools of Excellence. Under this project one of the key goals would be to empower students to strive for excellence across academics arts sports while fostering their agency sense of curiosity sportsmanship and a strong learning enthusiasm.

The Program Manager (PM) will collaborate with the TN School Education Departments leadership to drive the Schools of Excellence initiative across the state. In this role the PM would take ownership of the programme lifecycle including initiation requirements analysis design and delivery of the identified projects across the identified focus areas. In order to achieve the outcomes at scale the PM will work towards building robust relationships with the relevant officials serving as a bridge between key stakeholders of school leadership district level officials state officials leadership partners and donors.

The primary responsibilities include efficiently managing program design schedules partner onboarding project costs and addressing issues. PM will be accountable for mentoring the team as well as all operational aspects of the project by enabling coordination with internal and external stakeholders on a regularised basis.

Primary responsibilities:

• Understand and align approach outcomes and KPIs with the state leadership for the programme
  
• Design projects across the identified areas with budget and project execution plans for all phases of the project.
  
• Identify the operational needs of the project and monitor project outputs reporting to the leadership team on project milestones deliverables dependencies and risks.
  
• Focus on continuously improving processes and methods to achieve desired results.
  

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Manage and groom team by establishing processes and approaches for the team to adopt.
  
• Foster an environment that nurtures innovation creative thinking problem solving and working as a team to meet project goals.
  
• Lead by example in setting high standards for ownership communication and continuous improvement.
  
  

Education Qualification / Experience:

• Postgraduate (MBA or MPP/MPA)
  
• Total of 810 years of work experience including 35 years of postgraduation work experience.
  
• Experience with project and people management is required.
  
• Experience working with the government and in the education sector is desirable.
  

Knowledge Skills and Abilities:

• A deep passion for education reform Selfdriven forwardlooking thinker and doer seeking opportunities to pitch solutions and implement the accepted
  
• Strong organizational skills with excellent attention to detail
  
• Ability to work within an entrepreneurial stretched environment that is missiondriven and communityoriented
  
• Strong analytical skills to analysis performance data and to design way forward from inferences drawn
  
• Possess the emotional maturity to exercise good judgment in a variety of situations and the ability to maintain a realistic balance among multiple priorities.
  
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to build relationships with stakeholders including government staff external partners and donors
  
• Expert written and verbal communication skills English and Tamil (preferred)
  
• Result oriented and strong bias to action
  
• Innate ability to network seamlessly with people across the hierarchy spectrum.
  

Other Information:

• Total Openings: 1
  
• Reporting to: State PMU Lead
  
• Location: Department of School Education Chennai
  
• Scope: Full time Consultant
  
• Remuneration: Rs.911 LPA negotiable based on candidate s profile
  
• Expected Joining Date: Immediate