Evaluation and Research Officer

Background:

Indonesias Vision 2045 sets the goal for Indonesia to transition from a resource-based economy towards an advanced service, technology, and knowledge-based economy by the centenary of its independence (2045). The 2025-2045 National Long Term Development Plan emphasises the urgency of Indonesias human resource development to fully realise 2045 goals.

Faced however with persistent low student performance that is emblematic of a learning crisis, significant improvement in student learning will be required to reach Indonesias 2045 goals. Government of Indonesia (GoI) has started an ambitious program of education reforms. Successive education ministers have set out to modernise the education system through reforming the national curriculum and teaching and assessment approaches, to produce citizens with strong foundational skills, open minds, and inclusive values.

Australia is a long-term supporter of the Indonesian basic education sector, with continuous investments supporting education quality improvements for the past two decades, including through the INOVASI program (Phase 1 2016-2020; Phase 2 2020-2023) that focused on supporting acquisition of literacy and numeracy foundational skills in early grades classrooms; exploring local problems and solutions; and generating evidence to inform government policy development and practices.

This third phase of INOVASI (2024-2027) builds upon the existing programs approach and lessons learned and takes the focus on the development of foundational skills through to the end of the primary grades. Phase 3 will engage with priority issues of Australias development policy: gender equality, effective inclusion of children with a disability, responses to the climate change challenge in education. It will focus on the challenge of policy implementation and the gaps that exist between national policies and practices at district and school levels and use the well attested-success of INOVASIs local problem-based approach to continuously support policy development for effective fit between policy and implementation context.

The Program is managed by Palladium on behalf of DFAT.

Purpose of the Position:

The Evaluation and Research Officer will contribute to the work of the Performance and Learning (PNL) team in supporting implementation of MERL strategies, activities, and operation. INOVASIs MERL Strategy will describe (i) the programs approach to assessing and reporting progress towards and achievement of EOPOs and IOs, (ii) how evidence generated by the MERL system will be used in program decision making, adaptation, communications, and policy dialogue, (iii) the programs research agenda and how it will contribute to and support assessment of progress and achievement of IOs and EOPOs, and (iv) the resourcing and roles and responsibilities of the Performance and Learning (PNL) team. Implementation of the MERL Strategy will involve the Jakarta PNL team as well as MERL personnel in each provincial team.

The Evaluation and Research Officer will assist the implementation and administration of evaluation and research activities in collecting and building robust evidence of how education ecosystem works and improves, what interventions work to improve learning and student learning outcomes in Indonesia, what does not work, and under which circumstances. The work will involve long-term program evaluation and piloting, research and short-term quick turnaround analytical pieces as needed.

Duties: Temporarily under the direction of the Performance and Learning Manager and later under the direction of the Evaluation and Research Specialist, the Evaluation and Research Officer will:

1. Support the Performance and Learning team in implementing INOVASI Phase 3 MERL strategy.

2. Manage the implementation of INOVASI evaluation and research activities to ensure accuracy, timely input, and meaningful data and information for INOVASI management and relevant key partners decision making, in compliance with DFAT requirements. Responsibilities include:

- Assisting the development of evaluation and research plan, framework, activities, and instruments.

- Conducting literature reviews necessary for a comprehensive understanding of evaluation and research topics.

- Overseeing the management of data collection, data entry, data cleaning, and data analysis, while ensuring the quality and reliability of these processes.

- Supporting the Evaluation and Research Specialist in preparing draft reports, presentations, and factsheets based on evaluation and research key findings.

- Organizing and maintaining a comprehensive database that archives all evaluation data and research materials efficiently and systematically.

- Ensuring compliance to research standard, covering but not limited to, ethical research and child protection risk.

- Assisting with the procurement and management of resources needed for evaluation and research tasks.

3. Support the Performance and Learning Manager and Evaluation and Research Specialist in responding to requests for rapid-turnaround data analysis, as required, both by INOVASI, DFAT and by Government of Indonesia (GoI) partners.

4. Supporting the Performance and Learning Team to disseminate evaluation and research findings for feedback loop and learning, both for internal and relevant external audiences.

5. Assist in providing technical supervision and/or inputs for evaluation conducted by INOVASI grant partners and GoI, ensuring quality assurance in relation to evaluation design, sampling methods, quality data collection, synthesizing and analysing data, and identifying key findings to ensure that the evaluation administered by grant partners and GoI will generate quality outputs.

6. Supporting the Evaluation and Research Specialist in maintaining networking with relevant stakeholders to enable adequate communication on evaluation and research findings.

7. Other duties as may reasonably be required by the Performance and Learning Manager, Deputy Director of Education Policy, Evaluation and Research Specialist, and MERL Adviser.

Qualifications and Experience: Overall, the Evaluation and Research Officer should possess a combination of academic credentials, technical skills, and practical experiences. In detail, the person will possess the following qualifications and experience:

1. Good understanding of various quantitative evaluation models, research design, data collection and analysis techniques, and statistical methods commonly used in evaluation and research, with knowledge of those in educational domain is an added value.

2. Good skills in analysing complex data sets and interpreting findings, particularly at applying quantitative methods to assess the effectiveness of development programs, policies, and interventions (skills in education sector and knowledge and experience on qualitative research methods are added values).

3. Good written and verbal communication skills, abilities to effectively communicating evaluation and research findings to diverse stakeholders, including policymakers, educators, and the broader public. This includes the ability to prepare clear, concise reports, and presentations. Experience/ability to produce academic publications is an added value.

4. Ability to collaborate effectively with INOVASI internal units, key stakeholders, and evaluation/research partners.

5. Commit to ongoing professional development, both through self-learning and other means.

6. Strong computer skills and a high level of competency with statistical analysis software.

7. Demonstrated adaptability and ability to perform in a fast-paced, high-pressure, dynamic and ambiguous context.

8. Ability to work both independently and in a team.

9. Ability to travel at short notice.

10. Experience in education sector research is preferred.

11. Experience in writing research reports in English.