Project Officer, Higher Education at British Council Nigeria

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.

We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Project Officer, Higher Education

Location: Abuja
Duration: (Maternity cover) Fixed term of 6 months
Reports to: Project Manager, International Education Services
Role Type: Business delivery
Pay Band: 4

Role Purpose

• To work with the Project Manager supporting the delivery of the British Council’s Education programme. This includes the project support and delivery of all projects under the Education portfolio.

Geopolitical/SBU/Function Overview

• Nigeria is one of the largest economies in Africa. It is also the most populous country with over 170 million citizens. The UK is its largest trading partner. Nigeria holds significant political power in the region and internationally and its society retains a positive attitude to the UK. There are therefore major opportunities for the UK and BC to increase influence, income and, through this, our impact by building on our strong existing relationships with the Nigerian government, institutions and customers/audiences. However, there are complex and substantial risks to this work i.e. security and compliance.
• The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and builds trust between them worldwide. In all that we do the British Council acknowledges our duty of care to ensure a healthy and safe place to work for our staff, customers and visitors. We aim to achieve this through compliance with the safety laws in each of the countries in which we operate. We aim, where practicable, to follow UK standards, guidance and codes of good practice where these offer enhanced standards of health and safety. The British Council recognises that we have a fundamental duty of care towards all children we engage with including a duty to protect them from abuse. We achieve this through compliance with UK child protection laws and relevant laws in each of the countries we operate as well as by adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 1989.
• Our Equal Opportunity Policy commits us to ensuring that there is no unjustified discrimination in the recruitment, retention, training and development of staff on the basis of age, disability, gender including transgender, HIV/AIDS status, marital status including civil partnerships, pregnancy and maternity, political opinion, race/ethnicity, religion and belief, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, spent convictions, trade union activity or membership, work pattern and on the basis of having or not having dependants or any other irrelevant grounds.
• We guarantee an interview to candidates living with disability who meet the essential criteria.
• Candidates with special needs should please ask us for this information in alternative formats.
• All employees of the British Council must adhere to the Corporate Health & Safety, Equal Opportunity & Diversity and Child Protection policies and the Code of Conduct.

Key Responsibilities
This is post will have the following core functions:

• Project & Contract Delivery: to deliver high quality events and project activity working with partners and stakeholders in order to meet sector and country plans. To co-ordinate venues, consultant logistics, guest lists, transport, accommodation, media coverage and photographers, programme development.
• Marketing & Customer Service: To work with the Project Managers to deliver communication services to all projects including media coverage, effective public relations and the production and distribution of communication products arising from project activity
• Work with British Council Nigeria Marketing and Communications team to develop and disseminate reports and impact stories for external and internal communication channels including digital and print media
• Financial Planning & Management: To create and maintain purchase orders and sales orders in line with British Council policies and procedures.
• Scorecard Management: To support the collection, processing and reporting of monitoring and evaluation data gathered from projects in support of Scorecard and other evaluation requirements, as needed.
• Contacts Database Management: To develop and maintain a contacts management database related to project activity
• Delivery of our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion policy in relation to our projects work and in compliance with our policy on Child Protection.

Key Relationships
Internal:

• Country Director Nigeria, Director Programmes, Director Higher Education, Skills and Enterprise, Regional Manager Higher Education, Programme Manager Higher Education, IES project manager and the wider education and programmes teams.
• The Exams and Schools teams.

External:

• UK education institutions including higher education, and further education institutions.
• Nigerian education institutions including higher and further education institutions

Role Requirements

Threshold requirements

• Passport requirements/ Right to work in country - Right to live and work in Nigeria Shortlisting

Assessment stage - Shortlisting

• Direct contact or managing staff working with children? - Post Holder will be required to meet British Council child protection standards.

Assessment stage - Shortlisting / interviews

Notes:

• Operational project work requires occasional work outside conditioned hours, for example in the evenings or at weekends. TOIL should be agreed with the line manager in advance to maintain an adequate work-life balance.
• The post-holder may also be required to travel to various project activity locations and internationally on BC business and should therefore hold valid travel documents.
• Training may be required for certain aspects of the job such as using SAP.

Person Specification

Language requirements
Minimum/Essential:

• Fluency in written and spoken English - Shortlisted candidates will either demonstrate they have met the required standard through presentation of an agreed English language certificate, or will be required to take the APTIS test and demonstrate a B2 level of English proficiency.

Assessment Stage: Shortlisting and/or interview

Qualifications
Minimum/Essential:

• Bachelor's Degree

Assessment Stage: Shortlisting

Role Specific Knowledge & Experience
Minimum/Essential:

• Working knowledge of Nigerian and UK Education systems.

Assessment Stage: Shortlisting and/or interview

• Working Knowledge of Microsoft Office packages including MS Word, MS Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and SharePoint
• Stakeholder management - maintaining professional relationship with a wide range of high-level stakeholders.

Application Closing Date and Time
29th September, 2019 (23:59 UK time)

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Click here to download Job Details (Pdf)

Click here to download BC Behaviour (pdf)

Click here to download BC Core Skills (pdf)