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Since 2017 we have grown the GSF community to over 230 members across 70+ countries. We are developing new programmes, evidence and resources every day with and for GSF members and partners.

We draw on our collective expertise, experience and networks to deliver impactful work every day, supported by transparent data and information and a culture of innovation and learning.

Join our team and apply your knowledge, skills and experience to improve the education outcomes of children in low-and middle-income countries.

The GSF team is made up of passionate and dedicated individuals working across multiple countries and continents

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<div style="text-align: justify;"> <br>Global Schools Forum  <br>Senior Manager  <br>  <br> <br>Candidate Pack <br>November 2026 <br> <br> <br> <br> <strong>About Global Schools Forum  </strong><br> <br>Global Schools Forum (GSF) connects and strengthens a global community of over 240 non-state education organisations across 70+ countries. Since 2017, we have become a leading accelerator for locally-led education innovation in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, supporting non-state education organisations to innovate, deepen impact, and achieve scale. <br> <br>We bring together a trusted community of locally-led education organisations, generate and share knowledge and best practice on what works, mobilise funding for promising solutions, and build partnerships with governments, funders, and peers to strengthen education systems. Our community collectively reaches 135 million children, and our Labs and Impact Accelerator programmes have supported innovations that now reach an additional one million children, with measurable improvements in quality education and care. </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">We are at an inflection point in our journey, having grown five-fold over the last five years. Our 2025–28 strategy marks an ambitious next chapter, with a renewed focus on community, knowledge, funding, and partnerships, and a deepening commitment to early years, foundational learning, and education to employment pathways. Our vision remains that all children realise their potential through safe access to quality education. </div>
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<br>GSF holds a role no other organisation in this sector plays: we are the connective tissue for organisations across low- and middle-income countries who are wrestling with the same hard problems, often without knowing who else is wrestling with them too. <br> <br>GSF’s strategy currently covers these core areas:<br> <br>Knowledge Accelerator: We focus on creating, codifying and sharing evidence and best practices to enhance member knowledge and capabilities. Our efforts also include providing thought leadership and influencing policy on a global scale.  <br> <br>Funding Catalyst: We are focused on sub-granting to facilitate testing and scaling initiatives. This includes creating new on-granting vehicles for our members, such as financing low-fee private schools and advocating for foundational learning. Additionally, we aim to connect our members with funders and vice versa <br> <br>Partnership Builder: We facilitate partnerships among our members, connect them with global actors, and foster collaborations with governments to scale innovations. Additionally, we broker research partnerships to enhance our collective impact. <br> <br>Community Convenor: Fostering connection, trust, and relationship building among GSF members is essential for creating a vibrant and supportive community. By encouraging open communication and collaboration, we can strengthen the bonds between members, ensuring that everyone feels valued and included. This sense of belonging not only enhances individual experiences but also fortifies the GSF community as a whole, paving the way for shared growth and success. <br> <br>We are a small, fully-remote global team with colleagues based in the UK and across Africa and Asia, reflecting the communities in which we work. <br> <br>Our Values are central to everything we do as a team, as a global community and in our engagements with partners, funders and the global education community: <br> <br>Collaboration: We leverage each other's strengths and knowledge to drive and amplify purpose driven collective action. <br>Intentional Inclusivity: We cultivate and celebrate diversity of backgrounds, culture, perspectives, and approaches promoting inclusivity and mutual respect. <br>Continuous Improvement: We commit to continuously learning, improving, and innovating, while sharing best practices and failures. <br>Honesty and Transparency: We conduct ourselves with integrity, openness, accountability and kindness. <br> <br><strong>About Lighthouse Coalition </strong><br> <br>Global Schools Forum (GSF) is the host of Lighthouse Coalition, which sparks and sustains government leaders’ commitment to concrete actions that improve foundational literacy and numeracy outcomes. The Coalition connects non-state organisations and their government champion partners in five Indian states, four South African provinces, a Kenyan national numeracy coalition (in eight counties), and Senegal’s national bilingual reforms. Through International Immersions to see and experience exemplars and Domestic Activations for local coalition-building, we convert government leaders in key positions into committed FLN reform champions and build political will. Through experts sharing proven government engagement tactics and public recognition of government success stories, we support government coalitions and non-state partners to deliver with non-state organisations acting as ‘sherpas’ guiding government on the journey to scale. <br> <br>The Lighthouse Coallition activates and develops movements of senior and middle-tier leaders inside governments who have increased commitment and will take faster evidence-based actions scaling FLN reforms. Coalition partners help sustain reforms through instability, transfers, and budget and political fluctuations. This demand-side work feeds GSF’s work to strengthen supply of evidence through Acceleration to Fluency and support over 50% of GSF’s members who focus on government reform. <br> <br>Backed by the Gates Foundation, the Lighthouse Coalition is a partnership between GSF, Centro Lemann in Brazil, Central Square Foundation in India, Binding Constraints Lab in South Africa, Mizizi Elimu Afrika in Kenya, ARED in Senegal, and over a dozen ally non-state and funder partners across these five countries, Argentina and Vietnam. We strengthen each domestic coalition of reform champions while rooting them in a cross-country government-to-government sharing network. Feedback from partners shows that this is a unique model, pioneering a new way to increase government commitment for reform, that could be replicated to other levels of education and other sectors such as public health. <br> <br><strong>Role Purpose </strong><br>The Lighthouse Coalition pilot ran from October 2024 to September 2026, and the Coalition is now moving into Phase II, from November 2026 to January 2029. We are seeking a Senior Manager to guide Lighthouse from its start-up phase into this next chapter and to build the orchestration, systems and logistics that will strengthen and scale the model. Collaborating with the Lighthouse Lead Organiser, who launched and co-created the programme with partners, the Senior Manager will lead excellent and seamless execution of all Lighthouse activities. </div>
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<br>This is a Senior Manager position of influence and accountability, and not a coordination role. You will be a trusted counterpart to senior government officials, funders and domestic coalition leaders across five countries, with real say in how the Coalition is run and where it goes next. You will shape Lighthouse’s theory of change and strategy, lead the orchestration of a multi-country coalition of non-state, government and funder actors, steward a budget of nearly $1 million annually, and design the governance and logistics that keep a complex, high-stakes network working together to overcome substantial challenges. </div>
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<br>This is a rare opportunity to jump into a leadership position in a new, groundbreaking initiative testing ways to increase government demand for education reform. You will build stronger systems and guide the DNA of Lighthouse from proving the model works for foundational literacy and numeracy in India, Kenya, South Africa and Senegal – to potential expansion to other governments (such as Ethiopia, Nigeria or Pakistan) and other levels of education, such as early childhood and secondary. </div>
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<div>Ultimately, this role will ensure measurable improvements in outcomes for learners in hundreds of thousands of government primary schools across India, Kenya, South Africa and Senegal - with potential to add other focus geographies through additional funding. </div>
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<div><strong>Responsibilities </strong></div>
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<div><strong>A: Coalition Orchestration and Partner Relations </strong></div>
<div><strong>You will lead and own the day-to-day of Lighthouse Coalition’s success, in a new, highly complex multi-stakeholder initiative with ambitious goals to improve massive government-led education systems with entrenched binding constraints that make reforms difficult. </strong></div>
<ul>
<li>Co-develop Lighthouse theory of change and strategy with partners and funders, building on previous versions.  </li>
<li>Lead coalition orchestration, guiding a group of non-state, government and funder actors across five countries to achieve shared goals. Manage senior-level relationships with government engagement leads at non-state partners in focus geographies and senior and middle-tier officials in governments (Ministry of education teams, state/province/county reform teams, leaders of semi-autonomous government agencies, etc); connect coalition members, broker relationships, guide co-creation processes, track commitments, and enable shared accountability. </li>
<li>Maintain trust, resolve tensions and keep over 50 leaders involved over 15-year reform journeys, enabling the health of the coalition network as it grows. </li>
<li>Lead design and lead facilitate annual partner retreats where senior non-state leaders and funders co-create coalition strategy and share tactics about government engagement. </li>
<li>Lead bi-weekly check-ins with Centro Lemann and bi-monthly check-ins with three country Anchor organizations, enabling quality assurance and supporting partners to problem-solve where needed. </li>
<li>Lead coalition governance. Develop a shared governance framework, clarifying roles and responsibilities within the coalition and putting in place a meeting cadence and a system for reaching consensus and documenting decisions and outcomes. Coordinate scheduling of multi-stakeholder meetings with senior leaders across six time zones, including steering committee meetings and learning calls. Lead note-taking and actions follow up/tracking for bi-monthly Steering Committee meetings. Develop effective processes for the Steering Committee, supporting members to jointly decide what country anchors can decide themselves, what needs Committee approval, expected turnaround times, how disagreements and conflicts of interest are handled, and how the relevant Gates Foundation Programme Officer are kept involved.  </li>
<li>Schedule occasional expert pool calls, arrange learning opportunities, and share relevant knowledge products with partners. </li>
</ul>
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<div><strong>B: Programme Leadership </strong></div>
<div><strong>You will lead day-to-day of the Lighthouse programme, owning delivery across all workstreams and countries, keeping the programme’s systems and reporting disciplined, and working closely with the Lead Organiser and GSF Director of Programmes to surface and solve problems early. </strong></div>
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<li>Update deliverable deadlines and activity details weekly in the programme tracker, maintaining a view of hundreds of actions by dozens of coalition members. </li>
<li>Maintain an organised internal filing system for all programme documents. </li>
<li>Hold bi-weekly 1-1s with line Manager (GSF Associate Director, FLN) to track progress across all Lighthouse activities and troubleshoot issues. </li>
<li>Participate in regular check-ins with Lighthouse Lead Organiser to coordinate with their work (they co-fundraise and mobilize new partners, liase with external partners like FLN Hub, vet new Immersion destinations, capture and track Lighthouse impact through ethnography, develop knowledge products, and share results and success stories through communications and PR).  </li>
</ul>
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<div><strong>C: Financial Management </strong></div>
<div><strong>You will be accountable for a budget of nearly $1 million annually, with likely growth to additional geographies in 2028 and potential to replicate the Lighthouse model from FLN to reach early childhood or secondary levels of education systems. </strong></div>
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<li>Lead contract writing and signing, and manage invoice and report cycles with sub awardees, vendors and expert contractors. </li>
<li>Oversee payment distribution and track all budget expenses, changes and fund flows across more than 15 subawardees and contractors, with frequent changes and additions to the budget based on additional funding and additional incoming trip per-participant fees from funders, non-state organizations and governments. </li>
<li>Monitor budget shifts as partner needs evolve and additional co-funding is added. </li>
<li>Manage contracting, subawardees due diligence and tranche disbursements to all to subawardees and vendors, in-destination trip organisers and expert contractors. </li>
</ul>
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<div><strong>D: Events and Logistics </strong></div>
<div><strong>You will develop world-class systems and processes to make international learning trips run smoothly, making the process efficient for partner non-state organisations, senior government leaders, and funders; you will be the person responsible for the coalition overcoming complex challenges in visa processes and multi-layer government permissions (required both from host governments and sending governments). </strong></div>
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<li>Plan and deliver end-to-end logistics for Lighthouse events and international learning trips, including flights, hotels, meals, transport, meeting venues, school visits, guest speakers, translators, and support to visa applications and government permissions processes (in some cases, managing a local event partner organization). Book flights directly where needed (such as for Indian government officials). These include annual 50-person Immersion trips, smaller bespoke government Immersions, one-day partner retreats, and government sharing trips to global platforms such as UNGA. You will lead planning for at least 65 large-group Immersions in 2027 to India, South Africa and Vietnam. </li>
<li>Travel internationally to lead logistics for group immersion trips, with at least one in-person trip a year to destinations such as Vietnam or Argentina and virtual support for other trips. </li>
<li>Find opportunities for cost efficiency (such as securing potential travel agency partners for flight bookings). </li>
<li>Prepare regular reports and email updates to existing funders. Share Lighthouse results biannually with funder representatives joining Steering Committee meetings, and through ad hoc 1-1 meetings as needed. </li>
<li>Support Lead Organiser to prepare budget estimates for funding proposals and draft new proposals.</li>
</ul>
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<div><strong>Person Specification </strong></div>
<ul>
<li>Coalition management and government reform track record – you have experience leading a complex multi-stakeholder initiative with a budget of over $1 million, managing partner organizations and large funders. You have a demonstrated interest in government reforms. </li>
<li>Commitment and motivation - You are passionate about education or international development and making a difference, with a strong work ethic and persistence. Ideally, you have a long-standing track record working in foundational learning or with government stakeholders on large-scale system reform. </li>
<li>Attention-to-detail and planning - You pride yourself on getting the details right, with experience managing high-volume workloads and logistics, without compromising on organised systems, quality and accuracy.  </li>
<li>Proactivity and solution orientation – You're a self-starter, able to work independently and show initiative in identifying areas for improvement and implementing solutions (for example, helping us overcome challenges related to visas and government permissions for trips). </li>
<li>Multi-Country Experience - Experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia or Latin America, with strong contextual and cultural understanding. Preference for consultant based in Kenya, South Africa or India. Preference for a citizen of a low or middle-income country, based in a low or middle income country, with deep understanding of the context in which Lighthouse works. </li>
<li>Tech literacy – You’re proficient in the Microsoft 365 suite, Google Docs and other platforms and tools that make remote work possible . You have excellent Excel skills. </li>
<li>Communication, honesty and transparency - You have excellent written and oral communication skills. You share information and updates in a clear and transparent way, when things are going to plan and when they aren’t.  </li>
</ul>
 <br><strong>Terms and Conditions </strong><br> <br>Location<br>GSF is a fully remote organisation. We welcome applications from low- and middle-income countries where we work, with a preference for candidates based in Kenya, South Africa or India (Lighthouse focus countries). Local work authorisation in your country of residence is required.  Please note that we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role. <br> <br>The consultant will meet with partners across many time zones, between GMT-5 (USA) and GMT+7 (Vietnam), so needs to be willing to have occasional virtual meetings at non-business hours in early mornings or evenings. <br> <br>Some international travel is required, with at least one international trip annually. <br> <br>Daily Fee: £290 <br>Total Days Available: 13.5 days a month, with potential for increase to up to 18 working days monthly (if additional funding is secured). <br>Contract: Consultancy Contract <br>Contract Duration: up to 27 months, from start date December 1 2026 to January 30 2029 <br> <br> <br>Responsible to: Associate Director, FLN <br>Responsible for: No reports <br> <br><strong>How to Apply </strong><br>Applications are to be submitted through Global Schools Forum recruitment portal by Sunday November 15th 2026.  Please upload your CV.</div>
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<br><strong>Recruitment Process </strong><br>Shortlisted candidates will be contacted shortly after the deadline  <br>First-round interviews: November 18 and 19 <br>Second-round interview : w/c November 23 <br> <br>If you apply, we will process your personal data for recruitment purposes only and in accordance with our Data Privacy Policy. <br> <br>We are committed to inclusive recruitment and welcome requests for reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Please email info@globalschoolsforum.org to let us know how we can help. </div>
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<br>If you apply, we will process your personal data for recruitment purposes only and in accordance with our Data Privacy Policy.  </div>
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<br><strong>Equal Opportunities </strong><br>GSF is committed to a fair and inclusive workplace, where everyone can be themselves and thrive. We welcome applications and do not discriminate on the basis of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership.  <br> </div>

Global Schools Forum

Senior Manager