Senior Lead, Numeracy

Room to read; New Delhi; On-site; INR 2,400,000 - 4,200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement plan

Thirteenth month bonus

Competitive salary

Job summary

Room to Read seeks a Senior Lead, Numeracy based at the New Delhi, India Country Office to drive the strategic design and technical direction of the numeracy program within FLN goals and national priorities. The role requires collaboration with global teams, state governments, and program staff, with travel to program locations and leadership of a high‑performing numeracy team.

The Senior Lead will anchor vision, design, and quality of materials, professional development, and assessment systems,

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in education, social sciences, or equivalent.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant experience in education.
• Minimum 8 years in program management, preferably in education.
• Deep knowledge of foundational numeracy domain and approaches.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to travel regularly to project sites, including remote locations.
• Experience working with schools and communities.

Responsibilities

• Own and drive the overall vision and strategy for the numeracy program.
• Define design architecture, instructional approach, and quality standards.
• Lead translation of global expertise into a high‑quality program model.
• Set direction for teaching‑learning material development.
• Lead engagement with government and partner stakeholders.
• Build and lead a numeracy team with mentoring.
• Design and governance of national academic data systems.
• Lead monitoring frameworks and quality assurance across states.

Skills

Strong communication

Team leadership

Policy liaison

Numeracy program design

Education

Master’s degree in education / social sciences or equivalent

Job description

World Change Starts with Educated Children® IMPORTANT: All applicants must be legally eligible to work in the country where the position is located. Room to Read is not able to provide sponsorship.

Position Overview

The Senior Lead, Numeracy will be based at the New Delhi, India Country Office and will report to the Director, Literacy Program. This senior role is responsible for leading the strategic design and technical direction of Room to Read’s numeracy program in alignment with the organization’s FLN goals and national priorities such as NIPUN Bharat. The role will require close collaboration with global teams, state governments, and internal program teams, along with periodic travel to program locations. The Senior Lead will anchor the overall vision, design, and quality of numeracy interventions, ensuring that all program components—from teaching‑learning materials to teacher professional development and assessment systems—are coherent, research‑informed, and scalable across diverse state contexts.

Responsibilities

• Program Design & Development: Own and drive the overall vision and strategy for the numeracy program, defining the design architecture, instructional approach, and quality standards in alignment with RtR’s FLN goals and global frameworks. Lead the translation of global expertise and national priorities into a coherent, high‑quality program model, making key design decisions on pedagogy, learning progression, and delivery approaches suited to diverse state contexts. Set the direction for all teaching‑learning material development, including Teacher Guides, student materials, training and coaching guides, assessment and monitoring tools and digital resources, ensuring strong conceptual integrity, usability, and scalability. Establish and enforce quality benchmarks across all program outputs, with final accountability for the rigor, relevance, and effectiveness of materials and academic frameworks. Provide strategic oversight to content and academic teams, guiding their work, reviewing outputs, and ensuring alignment with the program’s design principles. Build and lead a high‑performing numeracy team, including setting priorities, mentoring team members, strengthening their technical capabilities, and being hands‑on to ensure delivery of high‑quality outputs. Drive innovation in program design and materials, informed by global research, emerging evidence, and field insights, while ensuring practical applicability in government school systems. Anchor the development of core academic frameworks, learning progressions, pedagogical models, mentoring framework, assessment approaches, ensuring coherence across all program components. Lead engagement with senior government and partner stakeholders on program design, influencing decisions on curriculum alignment, materials, and implementation approaches. Institutionalize strong review and feedback systems, using data, field insights, and inputs to continuously refine program design and improve quality at scale. Facilitate high‑level FLN academic sessions during national training events, partner forums, or capacity‑building workshops for academic leadership teams. Review emerging implementation/SLO trends on a monthly basis, across projects, to ensure implementation is on track, also design course‑correction strategies based on identified implementation or SLO gaps, if needed.
• National Planning, Review & Governance: Lead the development and refinement of national annual and quarterly academic strategies and plans for numeracy‑focused demonstration and scale‑up programs, ensuring alignment with organizational priorities and FLN goals. Drive structured national review mechanisms with state teams, setting performance benchmarks and ensuring alignment with program design, quality standards, and intended learning outcomes. Oversee the synthesis and documentation of key academic processes, innovations, and cross‑state learnings, and institutionalize these within national knowledge‑management systems. Provide strategic guidance to states and regional teams on academic planning and program design, enabling stronger, context‑responsive implementation models. Contribute with high‑quality academic inputs (monthly, quarterly, annual), translating multi‑state data into strategic insights and actionable recommendations for programs. Also give quality inputs for Donor reports. Maintain overall accountability for academic progress across states, ensuring adherence to the national FLN framework and driving course correction where required. Convene and lead national review forums, cross‑state learning platforms, and thematic workshops to strengthen alignment, peer learning, and program coherence. Guide the design and rollout of program interventions across states, including shaping implementation strategies and supporting high‑level engagement with state governments. Lead and manage the numeracy team, including setting priorities, strengthening team capacity, and ensuring high‑quality, timely delivery of outputs.
• Monitoring, Evaluation & Data Systems (National Design & Analysis): Lead the design and governance of national academic data systems in collaboration with the RME team, ensuring alignment with program goals and usability for decision‑making. Drive the interpretation and use of assessment and monitoring data to generate strategic insights, inform program design improvements, and strengthen learning outcomes. Oversee the development and maintenance of consolidated academic indicators and datasets to support evidence‑based planning and strategic decision‑making.
• Academic Monitoring Framework (Governance‑Level Oversight): Own and institutionalize a standardized national academic monitoring framework to guide classroom observations and program quality assurance across states. Develop monitoring tools and processes to ensure alignment with pedagogical standards and FLN objectives. Support RME with centralized dashboards to track academic performance across states and drive data‑informed planning and program redesign. Provide strategic direction on quality assurance, academic consistency, and monitoring standards across the entire program geography.
• Strategic Engagement and Knowledge Sharing: Lead participation in national and internal workshops, contributing to material design, training architecture, and strategic program discussions. Provide high‑quality, reflective inputs in state and national review forums, identifying systemic gaps and driving design‑level improvements. Facilitate the transfer of innovations and best practices across program states, ensuring cross‑learning and program strengthening at scale.
• Government Liaison and Technical Support: Lead high‑level technical engagement with government stakeholders, contributing to policy discussions, advisory forums, and strategic initiatives related to FLN. Represent the organization in national and state‑level platforms, positioning it as a thought leader in foundational numeracy. Participate in strategic partnership discussions with key education stakeholders (SCERT, DIET, district officials), influencing system‑level adoption and integration of program approaches. Provide strategic guidance to strengthen state and district capacity for improving foundational learning outcomes, aligned with NEP 2020 and NIPUN Bharat.
• Team Coordination and Capacity Building: Lead operational oversight to program officers and program associates and support them and Identify gaps in the operational capabilities and plan for their capacity building in discussion with the state manager. Build the technical and operational capacity of team members, enabling them to deliver high‑quality program implementation and stakeholder engagement. Establish systems for ongoing coaching, feedback, and capability building across teams, aligned with program priorities. Ensure strong internal coordination across state and national teams to maintain alignment in program design and execution.
• Planning, Reporting and Documentation: Oversee preparing regular (monthly, quarterly, and yearly) qualitative reports and documenting event reports, case studies and best practices. Responsible for high‑stake donor reporting, developing their annual, half‑yearly, quarterly and monthly work plan for implementation. Responsible for preparing Implementation calendar, cash forecast, PRs budget outlook, AP&B and regular tracking of budget management. Assist in preparing all programmatic and financial reports as required.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in education / social sciences or equivalent.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant experience in the education sector.
• Minimum 8 years of program management experience, preferably in education.
• In‑depth knowledge of foundational numeracy domain, practices and approaches.
• Conceptual knowledge, lesson, and curriculum planning skills in numeracy.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• Proven ability to work effectively with schools and communities.
• Ability to travel regularly to project sites in remote locations.

Compensation and Benefits

• Competitive salary.
• Thirteenth month bonus.
• Health insurance.
• Retirement plan.

Child Protection and PSEA Principles

• Room to Read is a child‑safe organization; all personnel must adhere to the Child Protection Policy, Child Protection Code of Conduct and Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Policy.
• Zero tolerance for child abuse, exploitation, neglect, maltreatment, and violence.
• Support for survivors with professional assistance, upon consent.
• All adults must be treated with respect and dignity.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Room to Read is an equal opportunity employer committed to identifying and developing the skills and leadership of people from diverse backgrounds.