Technical Specialist - Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Education

Job Description

The Ministry of Public Education (MPE) in Uzbekistan is committed to an ambitious program of systematic and comprehensive reforms. The country aims to create an education system that can produce graduates with the critical thinking, problem solving, and practical skills that will enable them to succeed. Launched in December 2019, the O’zbekiston Barkamollik uchun Ta’lim Dasturi (Uzbekistan Education for Excellent Program) is a four-year initiative, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support the goal of sustainably improving the reading, mathematics, technology, and English skills of students in the country’s public schools.

The Program is implemented by RTI International (RTI) in partnership with Florida State University (FSU) and Mississippi State University (MSU) to provide the expertise and experience needed to help MPE achieve and sustain the anticipated outcomes of the Program. The Program focuses on three main results: (1) improving reading and math outcomes in grades 1–6; (2) supporting information technology instruction for grades 5–11; and (3) improving English language instruction for grades 1-11.

To achieve these results, Program activities will be jointly implemented by the RTI team and MPE and entail:

• Reviewing current teaching practice, standards, and materials
• Developing and refining standards for Uzbek reading, mathematics, information technology, and English
• Updating and piloting revised curricula and instructional resources, shifting to standards-, and competency-based instruction
• Designing and implementing professional development and support activities for teachers and school leaders
• Conducting program and impact evaluation research.

The O’zbekiston Barkamollik uchun Ta’lim Dasturi (Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program) is committed to gender equality, social inclusion, transparency as well as local ownership and sustainability.

The Technical Specialist-ICT Education will provide technical leadership to support MoPSE for ICT Cambridge books national roll out, in particular the development of 200+ videos for students in grade 5 to 11, and to ensure that the Program achieves its objectives for quality ICT education materials by providing technical oversight and advice to the Ministry.

The Technical Specialist-ICT Education will also be called upon to support the Program in other ICT-related tasks related with the ICT books roll out.

Specific Responsibilities include the following:

• The Technical Specialist will not rewrite or provide the technical products assigned to the contractor, Macrosoft. The Technical Specialist will provide technical review and oversight, including to document technical advice provided and the rationale behind the advice to Macrosoft. The purpose of the documentation is to ensure that MoPSE has various opinions to consider as it makes decisions about the videos and to document the decision-making process, timelines, and decisions. These include the following:
• To schedule meetings every week or two weeks to review progress.
• To attend meetings with MoPSE to verbally review findings and answer questions to the import of various decisions.
• To keep a record of meeting minutes, timelines, options and decisions
• To provide verbal summary of technical approaches by Macrosoft:
• On content map (1) that outlines the topic of each video (estimate 2 review rounds)
• On script outline for grade 9-11 review video objectives, approach, and method
• To provide 1–2-page written summary to MoPSE on findings of content map review 1 and 2.
• To provide verbal capacity building of Macrosoft to develop a content map by grade with teacher experts
• To provide verbal capacity building of Macrosoft to develop video scripts for review with teacher experts
• To review grades 9-11 videos with early, constructive and frequent feedback to Macrosoft with the aim of improving alignment to Student Textbook.
• Establish effective relationships with MoPSE team and maintain productive ongoing and day-to-day communication with MoPSE, contractor and the Program team.
• Provide oversight on the contractor’s performance and collaborate with MoPSE to support materials that are produced and activities that are undertaken within agreed timeline meet MoPSE quality standards, sensitive to gender, social inclusion, conflict, child protection within the Uzbek education context.
• Undertake field trips, if needed, to promote adaptation of the students and teachers for appropriate use of videos in their curriculum.
• Support the work of the Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Communication team, as necessary, to contribute to the end of Program reporting.
• Assist the Chief of Party with oral interpretation during meetings and written interpretation of documents.
• In coordination with the Chief of Party, satisfactorily meditate/resolve any conflicts during the development and implementation of Program tasks and activities.
• Perform other reasonable tasks as required by the Program and as negotiated with the supervisor.

The Technical Specialist-Information and Communications Technology Education will report directly to and be supervised by the Chief of Party. The Technical Specialist-Information and Communications Technology Education will work collaboratively and intensively with other Technical Specialists, and with other team members, as required.

• A Master’s degree in ICT education or relevant related field and 3 years of experience of teaching at the primary and secondary levels or Bachelor’s Degree in ICT education or relevant related field and 5 years of experience of teaching at the primary and secondary levels.
• Near-native level of proficiency in English and native level of proficiency in Uzbek (including in Uzbek Latin and Cyrillic scripts). Proficiency in other languages/dialects used in Uzbekistan would be looked on favorably.
• Qualifications and/or experience in Uzbek as a Mother Tongue, English as a Foreign Language or English as a Second Language would be viewed very favorably.

Skills and Abilities

• Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of modern ICT education concepts and content, with deep understanding on ICT Cambridge books for grade 5-11.
• Demonstrated ability to establish productive relationship and excellence network with stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, under tight deadlines, in managing the stakeholder’s expectation (MoPSE) and the contractor performance.
• Excellent organizational, management and interpersonal skills, be collegial and working as part of a team to support others and to share experiences and expertise.
• Demonstrated computer literacy including excellent skills in using Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), file conversions (especially .pdf format to Word).
• Excellent attention to details and skills in proofreading and editing.

About the Organization