Associate (Assessment)

About the organization:

The organization was founded in 1995, to provide pre-school education to children in Mumbai slums. Over the last 27 years, the organization has grown to be one of the largest non-profit organizations working to provide quality education to children and youth in over 20 states and union territories across the country, through a range of interventions.

The program emphasizes the fundamental importance of universal foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). But, children, especially those with special needs and disabilities, face significant barriers hindering their acquisition of foundational skills. In India, an estimated 7.8 million children and young individuals had disabilities in 2019.

Position Summary:

We are looking to hire an Assessment Associate who will collaborate with various project units and will be charged primarily to design educational assessments for inclusive education projects. We are looking for a candidate who is a self-starter, with a strong analytical and rational mindset, who should be able to navigate through ambiguity and find solutions for measurement challenges.

Key Responsibilities:

++++ means day to day high frequency tasks which may usually be process oriented
+++ means weekly tasks/milestones that may require a bit of cognitive load
++ means the task has to be accomplished once a month
+ means the task needs attention once per quarter that may require creativity, cognition etc.

• Engaging with project implementers to understand requirements (+++)
• Understanding theory of change for projects and help in decision making process for stakeholders (+++)
• Analyzing textbooks and document competencies expected in target grades and subjects (++++)
• Creating assessment tasks, tools, formats, and training manuals based on project/programme goals (++++)
• Ensure that assessment tools are inclusive and accommodate various disabilities, allowing for fair and meaningful evaluation of students' abilities (++++)
• Participating in field piloting of tools and analyzing pilot data to understand broad trends and identify gaps in the assessment tool (++++)
• Leading training sessions for the team involved in implementation of assessment tools (++)
• Preparing reports documenting the process of tool design, tool development, tool administration, and the subsequent findings (++)
• Innovations in the field of educational assessments (++)
• Conceptualizing and building on existing research areas in educational assessments (++)
• Managing projects from conceptualization, budgeting, inception, implementation, reporting to closure (++)

Skills:

• Inter-personal, communication, negotiation, literature review, information mining capabilities, web search
• Analytical, information filtering, reading comprehension, multitasking.
• Analytical, Creativity, Data interpretation, writing (grammar etc.), self-learning, multitasking
• Clarity of thought, written articulation, web search, referencing (existing documents), multitasking

Knowledge:

• Analysis and documentation using logical framework. Concepts of educational assessments. Types of educational assessments. Advantages and trade-offs in implementing certain types of assessments
• Pedagogy, How learning happens, learning trajectories and pathways for learning (within a domain)
• Content/ Subject knowledge, Item writing, Cognitive domains of learners, Assessment framework, Educational statistics and measurement(Basics), Educational psychology (Basics)
• Educational statistics and measurement (Basics to intermediate), Data analysis in MS excel/STATA etc.
• Concepts of Educational assessments Knowledge about inclusive education and children with disabilities.

Required Qualifications:

• Preferably Master's or Graduation in relevant fields (Education, Psychology, etc) with a minimum 2 to 3 years experience in a relevant profile
• Willingness to promote innovation and adapt to change.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively and independently, with a strong commitment to inclusivity and diversity.
• Willingness to travel.