Gender and Social Inclusion Specialist

Experience level: mid senior level.

Project Description

EDC is seeking a Gender and Social Inclusion Specialist for a proposed education consultancy in Somalia focused on the development of the National Teacher Professional Development Plan (TPDP). The assignment will support the Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education (MoECHE) to produce a comprehensive, quality-assured, and implementation-ready national teacher professional development plan aligned with the National Teacher Competency Framework (NTCF), the Somalia Education Act (2023), and the National Transformation Plan 2025–2029.

The assignment is designed to help establish a coherent national system for continuing professional development (CPD), strengthen quality assurance, support certification and monitoring systems, and improve teacher professional development across Federal Member States, school types, education levels, and Integrated Quranic Schools.

Position Description

The Gender and Social Inclusion Specialist will ensure that gender equality and social inclusion are fully integrated into the design of the TPDP. The specialist will lead analysis of barriers to participation in teacher professional development, especially for female teachers and other underserved groups, and will help shape inclusive approaches to CPD delivery, stakeholder engagement, implementation planning, and monitoring. This role is particularly important to ensure that the TPDP responds to the needs of teachers in rural, nomadic, and conflict-affected settings, including female teachers in Integrated Quranic Schools and other hard-to-reach contexts.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead a gender and social inclusion analysis as part of the broader situational assessment for the TPDP.

• Identify barriers to participation in CPD, with specific attention to female teachers in rural, nomadic, and conflict-affected areas, as well as female teachers in Integrated Quranic Schools.

• Provide technical input to ensure that TPDP policies, systems, and implementation approaches are gender-responsive and inclusive.

• Advise on inclusive design of CPD delivery models, including approaches suitable for low-resource, low-connectivity, and geographically dispersed settings.

• Support the integration of gender and inclusion considerations into stakeholder consultations with MoECHE, Federal Member States, Teacher Training Colleges, teacher associations, Islamic scholar networks, and development partners.

• Contribute to the development of inclusive frameworks, tools, and recommendations across key work packages, including implementation planning, governance arrangements, quality assurance, M&E, and digital learning systems.

• Help ensure that indicators, baseline tools, and reporting approaches capture relevant sex-disaggregated and inclusion-sensitive data.

• Work closely with the Team Leader and other technical specialists to ensure that gender and inclusion considerations are embedded throughout all deliverables.

• Contribute written sections, recommendations, and review comments to ensure final outputs are practical, evidence-based, and responsive to the Somali context.

Education

Master’s degree in Gender Studies, Education, Social Science, or a related field.

Skills and Experience

• Minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience.

• Demonstrated experience in gender-responsive program design.

• Proven expertise in analyzing barriers to female teacher participation and broader social inclusion constraints.

• Experience designing or advising on inclusive CPD, education, or teacher development approaches in rural, nomadic, fragile, or low-resource settings.

• Strong understanding of equity and inclusion issues affecting access, participation, and retention in education systems.

• Experience working on donor-funded education programs, preferably in fragile or conflict-affected contexts.

Language

Professionally proficient and fluent in written and spoken English.

EDC is a smoke-free workplace.

EDC is one of the world’s leading nonprofit research and development firms. Established in 1958, EDC designs, delivers and evaluates innovative programs to address some of the world’s most urgent challenges in education, health, and economic opportunity. Our services include research, training, educational materials, and strategy, with activities ranging from seed projects to large-scale national and international initiatives.