Programme Director, Sukma, Bastar, Chhattisgarh

Role: Programme Director (Education), Sukma, Bastar, Chhattisgarh
Experience: Minimum 5 years, including at least 3 years in education
Salary: 10-12 LPA
Location: 70% onsite in Sukma, Bastar, Chhattisgarh + 30% work from home
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About the role:
As Programme Director, you will lead the design, implementation, review, and strengthening of our education programs across geographies. You will work closely with the founders, core leadership team, program teams, district teams, and government stakeholders to ensure that programs are implemented with quality, care, accountability, and learning.

You will be expected to balance:

• Program strategy with field realities
• Pedagogy and curriculum thinking with execution discipline
• Government engagement with community-rooted implementation
• Data and evidence with human-centred decision-making
• Team accountability with empathy and support.

Key Roles and Responsibilities

1. Program Strategy, Design and Planning

• Lead the design and strengthening of large-scale education programs across our geographies.
• Translate our vision of Positive Childhood Experiences into clear program goals, strategies, activities, and outcomes.
• Develop annual and multi-year program plans, including priorities, timelines, resource needs, and success indicators.
• Ensure that programs are contextually relevant for children in tribal, rural, conflict-affected, and resource-constrained settings.
• Support program teams in developing clear logic models, implementation plans, and review mechanisms.

2. Curriculum, Pedagogy and Learning Quality

• Provide leadership and guidance on curriculum, pedagogy, and classroom implementation across programs.
• Ensure that learning resources, modules, teacher training plans, and classroom practices are aligned with children's needs and program goals.
• Strengthen integration of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, STEM, SEL, ecology, gender, inclusion, and Positive Childhood Experiences across relevant programs.
• Support teams in designing child-centred, contextual, multilingual, and activity-based learning approaches.
• Review classroom-level evidence and field insights to improve program design and learning quality.

3. Large-Scale Program Implementation

• Lead and support implementation of district-level and multi-district education programs.
• Build systems for planning, execution, tracking, review, and course correction.
• Work with program managers, district leads, school support coordinators, and field teams to ensure timely and quality implementation.
• Anticipate implementation challenges in difficult geographies and support teams in finding practical solutions.
• Ensure that program delivery remains strong even under resource constraints, field access challenges, and changing government priorities.

4. Government and Stakeholder Engagement

• Build and sustain strong working relationships with district administration, education departments, SCERT/DIETs, block-level officials, and school leadership.
• Represent the organisation in government meetings, reviews, consultations, and program discussions.
• Support government departments in planning, implementation, data review, and capacity-building processes.
• Ensure that our work contributes meaningfully to public education systems rather than functioning as a parallel structure.
• Identify opportunities for government partnerships, scale, and policy-level influence.

5. Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

• Lead the development and strengthening of program monitoring and evaluation systems.
• Define clear indicators, tools, dashboards, review formats, and reporting rhythms for programs.
• Use data to assess program progress, learning outcomes, implementation quality, and team performance.
• Ensure regular field reviews, classroom observations, assessments, and documentation of learning.
• Convert evidence and insights into program improvements, case studies, reports, and knowledge products.

6. Team Leadership and Capacity Building

• Lead, guide, and mentor program teams working across different geographies and thematic areas.
• Build ownership, clarity, and accountability within teams while maintaining a culture of trust and care.
• Support team members in strengthening their skills in program design, pedagogy, implementation, documentation, and data use.
• Manage diverse teams working in resource-constrained and emotionally demanding contexts.
• Create simple systems for team reviews, work planning, feedback, and performance support.

7. Documentation, Reporting and Knowledge Building

• Ensure high-quality documentation of program processes, field insights, children's learning, teacher practices, and implementation models.
• Lead the preparation of program reports for internal reviews, donors, government departments, and partners.
• Support the development of case studies, learning notes, toolkits, program briefs, and knowledge products.
• Strengthen our ability to tell grounded, evidence-backed stories of change from the field.

What We Are Looking For

Experience and Skills

• Minimum 5 years of overall professional experience.
• At least 3 years of relevant experience in education.
• Experience of managing large-scale district-level or system-level education programs.
• Prior experience of working with government departments, especially education departments, district administration, SCERT, DIETs, or block-level systems.
• Strong program design, planning, implementation, and review skills.
• Strong understanding of curriculum, pedagogy, classroom processes, and teacher capacity building.
• Understanding of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning systems, including indicators, tools, assessments, dashboards, and reporting.
• Strong documentation and writing skills.
• Experience in managing teams under resource constraints and complex field realities.
• Ability to work with diverse stakeholders including government officials, teachers, community members, funders, and grassroots teams.
• Strong communication skills in English and Hindi.

Leadership and Mindset

• Deep commitment to children, education, equity, and dignity.
• Comfort with living and working in Sukma/Bastar for a significant part of the role.
• Ability to lead with humility, empathy, clarity, and accountability.
• Strong problem-solving ability in uncertain and resource-constrained contexts.
• Willingness to learn, unlearn, listen deeply, and adapt to field realities.
• Ability to work closely with local youth teams and build their leadership.
• Strong sense of ownership and long-term commitment to the mission.

You may be a strong fit for this role if:

• You believe that education is not only about learning outcomes, but also about safety, dignity, belonging, and childhood.
• You enjoy designing programs, but also understand that the best designs are shaped by the field.
• You can sit with government officials in a review meeting and also spend time in a remote classroom understanding a child’s learning experience.
• You are comfortable with ambiguity, limited resources, and complex social realities.
• You can build systems without becoming rigid, and lead teams without losing warmth.
• You are excited by the idea of helping us strengthen and scale our work while staying rooted in Sukma and Bastar.

Hiring Note: Applications will be reviewed on rolling basis. This job is first posted on July 16, 2026 on Ground Zero

For any questions, ping us on WhatsApp chat: +91-8058331557