Project Consultant - Tamil Nadu

About Central Square Foundation

Founded in 2012, Central Square Foundation is a non-profit philanthropic foundation working with the vision of ensuring quality school education for all children in India. We believe that effective foundational learning is essential for better learning outcomes for all children in school. The development of foundational literacy and numeracy skills by Class 3 can help children progress to higher levels of learning and is an essential building block in a child's life.

We are driven by our mission to enable the school education system to adopt solutions that are scalable, sustainable and effective, so that all children get equal access to opportunities needed for leading a better life. CSF has prioritised 4 critical areas of work: Foundational Literacy & Numeracy (FLN); EdTech; Early Childhood Education (ECE); and Schools Governance.

Read more about our work here: https://www.centralsquarefoundation.org.

About EdTech at CSF

CSF's EdTech initiative focuses on leveraging technology to enhance teaching and learning, both in classrooms and at home, through student-focused and teacher-directed interventions. Our goal is to improve foundational learning in primary grades and provide remediation support in middle school using evidence-based, scalable technology solutions.

Since 2012, CSF has played a pivotal role in shaping India's EdTech ecosystem by bridging demand and supply, backed by rigorous research. We drive impact by:

• Supporting EdTech organisations to build contextually relevant, pedagogically sound products for low-income learners.

• Generating evidence on what works, how it works, and how to scale effective EdTech interventions.

• Partnering with governments to implement EdTech solutions and influence policy.

• Funding public goods to drive innovation and strengthen the ecosystem.

In the last five years, CSF has collaborated with 15+ EdTech organisations, 11+ state governments, and leading academic institutions, reaching 2.5 million learners across India.

Join us to shape the future of learning for India's children and help build an EdTech ecosystem that is evidence-driven, tech-enabled, scalable and equitable.

Position Summary

Central Square Foundation aims to work closely with the Department of School Education, Tamil Nadu, by providing support for the adoption and implementation of EdTech programs for the K-12 schooling system in the state. This position is a full-time assignment as part of the CSF's EdTech and AI team for this purpose. The consultant will be expected to support the execution of live projects and help start new projects by working closely with senior and junior officers in the department towards commonly aligned milestones.

Location

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Engage with relevant stakeholders within DSE-TN, including state, district, block, and school-level officials, to understand implementation progress and challenges. Coordinate with relevant stakeholders to ensure timely execution and resolution of implementation challenges.
• Undertake school visits, lead consultations with stakeholders to identify any implementation gaps, challenges, opportunities, and provide actionable recommendations for strengthening EdTech initiatives in the state.
• Support DSE-TN in the end-to-end planning, implementation, monitoring, and scale-up of EdTech and AI education initiatives. This would include, but not limited to, developing pilot proposals whenever necessary, defining objectives, creating implementation roadmap and strategies, identifying resource requirements, aligning stakeholders, creating monitoring framework, and defining expected outcomes.
• Analyze data and glean meaningful insights for driving adoption, student engagement, EdTech platform usage, and uptake of EdTech programs by students and teachers in schools
• Coordinate with CSF internal teams, technology partners, academic institutions, and implementation agencies to drive project execution, under the supervision of the team lead
• Prepare analytical reports, progress updates, meeting notes, presentations to inform departmental decision-making.

Required Qualifications, Skills, and Abilities:

• Bachelor's or equivalent degree required
• Minimum 4 years of work experience demonstrating strong project delivery

• Proficiency in English and Tamil (Written and Verbal) is mandatory

• Strong solution-oriented mindset with continuously seeking ways to move tasks forward despite challenges to achieve project goals efficiently and effectively.
• Ability to independently address and resolve issues by leveraging data, considering alternative approaches, and weighing their pros and cons meticulously
• Comfort with large-scale data, its analysis and reporting as per the audience profile
• Ability to build and maintain positive and collaborative relationships both within and outside the organisation, including with government stakeholders across hierarchies, EdTech product vendors, donor organisations, colleagues, researchers, and any other relevant stakeholders
• Ability to conduct and facilitate meetings with confidence, ensuring discussions are productive, objectives are met, and follow-ups are clearly defined.
• Ability to conduct and facilitate meetings with confidence, ensuring discussions are productive, objectives are met, and representing CSF to external audiences
• Ability to create detailed presentations, reports, and documentation that are thorough, accurate, and tailored to audience needs.
• Strong execution, planning, and organisational skills, and an ability to be able to set priorities, plan timelines and meet deadlines

Compensation

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and will depend upon the candidate's experience level

Application Process

Interested candidates are requested to submit an updated resume tailored to the role, a brief Statement of Purpose (not exceeding 500 words) outlining how their past experience and future aspirations align with the role, and details of two references through the CSF Careers Portal by 30th November 2026.

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an initial HR call to discuss the role in detail and align on the next steps in the hiring process.