Numeracy Specialist

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 Position: Numeracy Specialist

Reports to: Director, Program Design and Pedagogy

Location: Nairobi (with travel across Africa)

Deadline: 21st November 2025

TaRL Africa Initiative

TaRL Africa initiative is hosted by Empower Learning Africa, a not-for-profit organisation registered and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, with teams in Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Zambia and locally registered offices in Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire. TaRL Africa began as a joint venture by Pratham and J-PAL in 2019, with the goal of supporting governments and organisations across Africa to accelerate children's foundational skill learning using the evidence-based "Teaching at the Right Level" (TaRL) approach. TaRL Africa's vision is for every child across Africa to have foundational skills so that they can have a better future. Our mission is to ensure education systems effectively equip children with these foundational skills.

We support governments and organisations in over 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to design, deliver and scale impactful TaRL programmes while learning and sharing how the approach can be improved for different contexts. Together with partners, TaRL Africa has reached over five million children with TaRL programming.

Position Summary

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa is seeking a Numeracy Specialist to serve as the lead on all matters related to numeracy program design and pedagogy across our programs. This critical role is responsible for overseeing the quality, effectiveness, and fidelity of TaRL's numeracy offerings for grades 1-5. The specialist will lead comprehensive reviews of existing content, ensuring all materials are grounded in the latest research, address foundational numeracy skills, and adhere to the core TaRL pedagogical approach.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

The specialist will be responsible for the following key areas of work:

I. Technical Oversight and Program Strategy

• Lead Numeracy Strategy: Serve as the strategic lead for all numeracy content, constantly reviewing and proposing improvements to the core TaRL methodology to maximize impact on foundational mathematics skills.
• Ensure Curriculum Quality and Fidelity: Conduct regular, comprehensive reviews of all TaRL numeracy teaching/learning materials to ensure they support the core principles of the TaRL methodology (e.g., assessing children accurately, targeted instruction- taking into consideration the context of the program) and are being implemented with quality and fidelity.
• Ensure curriculum alignment: grades 1-2 require much less remediation and more alignment with the curriculum to ensure learners acquire concepts and skills that set the foundation for math in higher grades.
• Foundational Skills Mastery: Ensure that TaRL's numeracy content robustly covers all critical early numeracy outcomes (CENOs) and addresses the learning progression required to build strong foundational math skills (number sense, subitising, operations, place value, etc.).

II. Content Review and Development

• Evidence-Based Revisions: Initiate and manage the revision of key content and instructional materials (teacher guides, session templates, activity books) based on rigorous analysis of learner progression data and teacher feedback.
• Research Integration: Systematically review and integrate findings from academic research, particularly in early grades math and structured pedagogy, into TaRL's material design.
• Documentation of Change: Ensure all material changes are meticulously documented with clear justifications (before vs. after) to provide a transparent audit trail for partners and researchers.

III. Collaboration and Research Linkage

• Research Partnership: Serve as the technical link between the Program Design team and the Research, Learning & Evaluation team, translating research questions into pedagogical design choices and ensuring materials are suitable for rigorous field testing and evaluation.
• Cross-Country Alignment: Work closely with Country Teams to contextualize and adapt core numeracy materials to specific national curricula while maintaining pedagogical fidelity.
• Capacity Building: Provide high-level technical input and support to in-country pedagogical teams and master trainers on complex numeracy concepts and instructional techniques.

Qualifications and Competencies

• Education: Master's degree required (or equivalent qualification/experience) in Education, Mathematics Education, Developmental Psychology, or a related field, with a documented focus on Early Grades Numeracy/Mathematics and foundational learning. D. with a Post-Doctoral fellowship is highly desirable.
• Minimum Years of experience- 5 years in a similar role
• Experience: Demonstrated expertise in curriculum design, instructional material development, and analysis of education data.
• Analytical Skills: Proven ability to synthesize complex academic literature and implementation data into clear, actionable recommendations for program improvement.
• Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills in English (and preferably French) for presenting technical findings to diverse audiences, including senior government officials and academic partners.

 TaRL Africa Values

1. We place children's learning first.
2. We are always learning, improving, and innovating.
3. We are locally rooted for high-quality delivery and sustainable impact.
4. We are kind, respectful and collaborative.
5. We are proactive, committed to integrity and doing our best each day.

This job description covers the main tasks and conveys the spirit of the sort of tasks that are anticipated proactively from staff. Other tasks may be assigned as necessary according to organisational needs.

TaRL Africa provides a nationally peer-benchmarked compensation package aligned with organisational salary scales, taking into account both qualifications and professional experience.

TaRL Africa is an equal-opportunity employer committed to having a diverse workforce