Manager, South Asia team - Pakistan - 2015

About the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Sector Programme

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Support Programme is a five-year project designed to help the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa realise the objectives of its Education Sector Plan. This focuses on increasing the number of girls and boys enrolling in and successfully completing school, receiving a quality primary and secondary education. Based on current indicators, Pakistan is not on track to achieve Millennium Development Goals 2 and 3 for education. Within Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, development indicators lag behind the rest of Pakistan. Around half of the total population are illiterate, including some 7 million people in the 9-39 age group. Less than 30% of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa women and girls in this age group are literate. Of the more than three million children not enrolled in basic education, nearly two million are girls. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa plays a crucial role in the context of Pakistan’s peace and stability, due to its borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas, and its poor education and other social indicators. It is therefore a focus province for the UK Department for International Development.

About the role

Adam Smith International is continuously strengthening our in-house education capacity and is appointing a manager to support our large portfolio of education work in Pakistan.

Managers perform a key role in Adam Smith International’s consulting model and play a central part in managing project implementation, risk management financial reporting. The successful candidate will be responsible for:

• Providing additional support in the field to those charged with delivering our existing portfolio of education projects;


• Acting as the primary point of contact on any operational and financial aspects of the programme;


• Ensuring that all financial systems are in-place and fit-for-purpose. Ensuring that overall spending levels are in-line with the budget.


• Building a pool of short-term consultants to be deployed on the programme;


• Ensuring that work-plans are developed for each component / intervention and the programme overall. Monitoring delivery against the work-plans and investigate any significant deviation.


• Quality assurance of all key client deliverables (including milestone deliverables and client reports).

The position is based in Pakistan (Peshawar) and will require extensive travel to support our education work.

About you

As a Manager you should have proven abilities to build effective relationships with clients from a wide range of professional and cultural backgrounds, and to work effectively in politically sensitive and challenging environments. You should relish working in a team, and should be innovative, energetic, positive, and genuinely committed to achieving lasting change in education outcomes. Adam Smith International seeks the following skills and experience:

• A post-graduate degree in education, public administration, public policy, economics, public financial management or other relevant fields from a top class university;


• We also encourage applications from students of history, classics, languages and other arts based subjects who have excellent degrees from elite universities;


• Experience in one of the professions, in development or in consultancy;


• A demonstrable interest in and commitment to education reform and a knowledge of and interest in the world of development;


• Experience of working in South Asia;


• Demonstrated experience of initiative, entrepreneurial mind-set, client-orientation, risk taking, and working in complex and time-pressured contexts;


• Outstanding English, written and oral, communication skills;


• Be willing to relocate to Peshawar;


• Enthusiasm and flexibility along with a willingness to travel at short notice and work in developing countries for a significant time;


• Excellent inter-personal skills and team-work;


• Strong attention to detail;


• Excellent IT skills including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project and Visio.

What We Offer You

We offer you a dynamic and friendly team environment and the opportunity to work on a highly successful portfolio of programmes. We have a strong commitment to our people and strive to live by our principles:

• Take responsibility (Accountability).We are individually and collectively accountable for what we do.


• Always find a way (Resourcefulness).We think innovatively to reach a solution.


• Promote Quality (Excellence).We maintain and promote professional standards in everything we do.


• Commit to the Outcome (Achievement).We take pride in delivering our best to achieve results

We’ve built a culture to reflect our principles, full of likeminded professionals who are smart, passionate and great at what they do.