Consultancy DescriptionRef no:

/ Role Profile
Consultant Title / Production AssistantTESS-India No. of positions: 1
Directorate or Region / South Asia / Department/Country / TESS – India
Location of post / New Delhi / Pay Band / Consultancy contract commensurate to experience
Reports to / Country Project Manager TESS-India with partial reporting to Head Academics TESS-India / Duration of consultancy / Until December 2014
Purpose of consultancy:
The post holder will provide pro-active academic and administrative support within the TESS-India teamto support the production activities of the materials development strand for the TESS-India project. S/he will work closely with various internal and external stakeholders.
Context and environment:
The British Council
Our operations in the four main metro cities and through libraries in five further cities engage with over 2.5 million people a year. We aim to increase our reach to 3 million (including 1.5 million enquiries) by 2013. We work across 3 strategic business units, Education and Society, English and the Arts.
We have 4 teaching centres in Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai. Our nine libraries have a membership of more than 60,000, while our Exams business offers UK qualifications to more than 160,000 Indians wishing to enhance their English language, academic and professional skills.
We operate through centres in New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai. In partnership with the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, we run libraries in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Pune. India also hosts the British Council Management Services office in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, which provides finance and IT services for the global network.
The Open University
Since its foundation in 1969 The Open University has become the largest university in Europe, teaching
well over 230,000 people every year, and it is continuing to expand its activities globally. The OU has been
one of the top three UK universities for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey every year since the survey began in 2005. In 2010/11 it had a 93 per cent satisfaction rating. In the UK’s latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008) the OU was ranked in the top third of UK higher education institutions and 50% of OU research was assessed in the RAE as internationally excellent, with 14% as world leading. The OU employs more than 5,000 full-time staff, approximately two thirds of whom are based at Walton Hall in Milton Keynes and 7,000 Associate Lecturers who work directly with our students.
The Open University is:
Open as to people and plays a leading role in the transition to mass higher education by serving an increasingly large and diverse student body
Open as to places and contributes to a widening of educational opportunities by making its programmes, courses and services available throughout the UK and more widely in Europe and the world
Open as to methods and uses distance-teaching methods and new learning technologies and teaching techniques to serve home-based and work-based students
Open as to ideas and is a vibrant academic community dedicated to the expansion, refinement and sharing
of knowledge.
Programmes of study include BA and BSc degrees; taught and research-based postgraduate courses
leading to Masters and Doctoral qualifications; professional training in the fields of management, health and social welfare, education, languages, manufacturing and computing; and family, personal and cultural education and leisure interests. The University has successfully transferred its expertise in developing curriculum content and innovative pedagogy and in supporting students to programmes and projects across
the world.
TESS-India
TESS-India, a projectfunded by UKaid from the Department for International Development and led by The Open University, will address the urgent need to improve the quantity and quality of teacher education in India, improving the classroom practice of teachers that is essential for successful education reform. TESS-India seeks to improve significantly the classroom experience of millions of students in schools across India.
The impact of this project will be to contribute to:
  • The development of a better educated teacher workforce at elementary and secondary level through an enhanced teacher education system that embeds practice-based and school-focussed training and which has increased capacity.
  • Changing teacher educators’ and teachers’ attitudes and classroom practices, through improving provision of, and access to, high quality practice based teacher education.
The project will deliver:
  • A sustainable network of key teacher education organizations and institutions where capacity building and sharing fosters and promotes internationally recognized best practices in teacher education.
  • An accessible bank of high quality and activity-based Open Educational Resources (OERs) available to support the development and professional practice of teacher educators and teachers.
  • New and redesigned teacher education programmes, which have strong practice-based and school-based strands, built around TESS-India OERs, supporting enhanced and sustained change in the pedagogic practice of teachers.
  • Rigorous monitoring and evaluation of policy maker, teacher educator and teacher experience, to assess project impact and promote policy change at state, national and international level.
British Council isa key partner in TESS-India and will provide some consultancy services around specific content areas of the project such as English language as well as operational i.e. administrative, financialand logistical support.
The TESS-India team is being recruited by The British Council in India on behalf of the Open University. The core team is based at the British Council office in Delhi and is headed byCountry Project Directorand consists of 10 key staff. In addition thereare State representativesand support officers accountable for each of the 7 focus states.
Accountabilities, responsibilities and main duties:
(including people management and finance)
The post holder will provide pro-active academic and administrative support within the TESS-India team to support the production activities of the materials development strand for the TESS-India project. The post holder will provide pro-active academic and administrative support within the TESS-India team to support the curriculum and production activities of the materials development strand for the TESS-India project. S/he will work closely with internal and external stakeholders.
The Production Assistant role will manage the production of 875 Teacher and Leadership Development Units through the Localisation process. Pan India ‘shell’ units in English are currently being delivered to the TESS-India team from the Production Team in the UK. These Units are then translated and contextualised in each State. The Production Assistant will need to manage this workflow working with representatives in the State and the central team in OU.
When the Units have been localised the Production Assistant will need to liaise with an external company who will tag the Units from Microsoft Word into XML for online delivery. At every stage of the process Quality Assurance will need to be sought, logged and checked. The Production Assistant will be required to report on progress throughout the process and will also be required to move the Units forward through each stage of Production to agreed timelines.
1To support the production of localised materials in accordance with established processes liaising with the Production team in the UK. This will involve setting up templates to monitor workflow of documents throughout production.
2To work closely with the academic team and State Reps to support the Localisation process.
3Responsible for process documentation of localisation process in all 7 states
4To support the management of the materialproduction and independently make decisions on appropriate action, consulting as necessary with the academic team/UK Production team
5To support the Quality Assurance processes ensuring material gets signed off at each stage
6To liaise with a wide range of internal and external contacts at all levels requiring the ability and commitment to present a professional impression of the TESS-India Project
7Prepare regular reports on Localisation progress to share with relevant members, having maintained contacts list
8To provide pro-active administrative support to the TESS-India project team using a high level of initiative and personal judgment to solve day to day issues as they arise.
9Provide general administrative support to the Academic Team booking meetings, writing minutes and monitoring follow up actions.
10To carry out other tasks as specified from time to time by the Country Project Director
Deliverables will be set and monitored through weekly meetings and monthly reporting through time sheets, activity plans and other reports to Country Project Manager,Head Academics, Academic team (OU) and Country Project Director.
Key relationships: (include internal and external)
Internal:
  • TESS-India teams based in India and in the UK.
  • TESS-India appointed partners, sub contractors and consultants
External:
  • Stakeholders within state government, etc. as and when required.
Other important features or requirements of the Consultancy
(e.g. travel, unsocial/evening hours, restrictions on employment etc)
Some weekend working and travel may be required.
Requirement to work flexibly
Please specify any passport/visa and/or nationality requirement. / Consultant will need valid work permit to work in India.
Please indicate if any security or legal checks are required
for this role. / Reference Checks as per British Council India HR policy

Person Specification

Criteria / Essential / Desirable / Assessment
Education, qualifications and training / Master’s degree or equivalent in Education / Social sciences / Psychology / Sociology
 / Interview and Application form
Knowledge and experience / Knowledge of Educational material development and production processes
Knowledge and experience of process documentation
Minimum 3 years' of experience (preferably education) in operations and project implementation.
Experience of managing multiple stakeholders and delivering results with minimal supervision.
Proven experience of working in an academic capacity / Experience of international development projects
Experience of research related to Process documentation / Interview and Application form
Skills and personal qualities / Excellent oral and written communication skills
Excellent IT skills with the ability to use a range of software including MS office packages esp. Excel.
Written and verbal knowledge of English and Hindi
Excellent organisational skills, ability to manage a large and complex workload to a professional standard
High level of accuracy with good attention to detail
Ability to digest new information quickly and think logically and concisely
Evidence of strong team working
Ability to work independently under pressure / Knowledge of other regional languages of Bengali / Odia / Assamese / Kannada is desirable / Interview and application form

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