Background

Leadership For Skilled Education Foundation (branded as Leadership for Equity, LFE) is a non-profit organisation based in Pune, Maharashtra, working to strengthen India’s public education system so that every child learns and thrives. We envision public education systems that refuse to let children down.

LFE partners with state and district governments across multiple states—including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Haryana—to improve teaching practices and build sustained academic support structures within the public system. Our work is anchored in the belief that public education systems are the gatekeepers of social equity, and strengthening them is essential to ensuring that every child has access to strong foundational and future-ready learning.

Approach

LFE’s systems-change approach focuses on improving classroom practice and enabling government ownership through three core levers:

1. Co-creating high-quality curricular resources and building teacher capacity

2. Developing academic leadership to coach and mentor teachers

3. Providing data-driven advisory support and policy implementation guidance

Our model empowers teachers as instructional leaders and embeds long-term support through government-run mentor cadres, continuous classroom observation cycles, and in-system academic structures. Technology plays a critical role, including an in-house Classroom Observation App for real-time monitoring and a WhatsApp-based teacher support chatbot for contextual resource delivery.

The approach is iterative and context-responsive, grounded in classroom realities and tailored to state and district needs. Implementation varies across geographies—whether working directly with teachers or through government-appointed mentors—ensuring relevance and feasibility within existing structures. A continuous feedback loop of training, observation, and coaching moves beyond one-time interventions toward sustained practice change.

All programs are co-designed and co-implemented with government partners to ensure scale, sustainability, and systemic ownership, ultimately leading to improved student learning outcomes in foundational and future literacy.

About District Transformation Project:

The district transformation project (DTP) is aimed to improve the quality of schools in Zilha Parishad of a particular district. This program was started in 2018 in the Nashik district and now it's present across 5 districts of Maharashtra. Under DTP, we want to improve the practices of teachers of Zilla Parishad schools and overall the interaction of the teachers with students so that student learning outcome especially in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) improves.

As part of this work, the team conducts teacher training through the government in service teacher training platform. We also work with middle managers of the system and support them in the administration in order to improve the quality of education in government schools.

and Responsibilities

The Academic Manager - Capacity Building will play an important role in improving the quality of education in Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools by strengthening teacher professional development and classroom practices across the district.

The role will work closely with the Senior Project Manager/Head – Capacity Building to plan and implement high-quality teacher training at district and block levels.

The Academic

Manager will also support Teacher Mentors, Block and Cluster level education officials, and teachers to improve classroom observations, mentoring and implementation of FLN practices.

This role combines academic rigour, strong field engagement and project management.



The person will spend significant time working with teachers, schools and government stakeholders while also using data and evidence to continuously improve programme quality.

We are looking for someone who has classroom teaching experience, understands the realities of government schools, enjoys working with teachers, and believes that sustainable change happens by strengthening the public education system.

The key responsibilities include:

Teacher Capacity Building(30%)

- Plan and implement teacher capacity building programmes at district and block levels aligned with FLN and programme goals.

- Conduct high quality Shikshan Parishad and other academic training sessions with strong preparation and facilitation.

- Ensure training sessions include effective demonstrations, practical activities and contextualised examples that teachers can use in their classrooms.

- Support the academic readiness of Master Trainers and other facilitators before every training cycle.

- Support the development of facilitation guides, lesson plans, teacher resources, TLM ideas and academic tools.

- Document good practices and field learnings that can strengthen future training programmes.

- Contribute to donor reports, programme presentations and academic communication using clear evidence and insights.

Teacher Mentor Professional Development (20%)

- Implement the Teacher Mentor Professional Development (TMPD) model with quality and consistency across the district.

- Track and ensure timely completion of monthly classroom observation targets, proactively addressing gaps to minimise spillover.

- Build the capacity of Teacher Mentors to conduct classroom observations and coaching conversations.

- Support mentors in identifying teacher needs and providing practical academic support.

- Plan and implement the Classroom Observation Tool across assigned schools and blocks.

- Ensure observations, feedback and coaching follow the expected quality standards.

- Regularly review observation and coaching data to improve mentoring practices.

- Provide targeted support to mentors who require additional coaching or academic guidance.

Demonstration sites and Depth Implementation (20%)

- Lead the development of selected Depth classrooms and schools to demonstrate what good FLN teaching and learning looks like in practice.

- Support teachers to improve key FLN practices, use TLMs effectively, manage classrooms well, and create print-rich and learning-friendly classrooms.

- Ensure teachers receive regular observations, feedback, demonstrations and mentoring based on their specific needs.

- Regularly track changes in teacher practice, classroom environment and student learning, and use this evidence to understand what is working and what needs improvement.

- Capture learnings from Depth classrooms and identify practices that can be adapted and taken to Sub-scale and Scale

Monitoring, Data & Quality Assurance (15%)

- Establish robust monitoring systems: Use DMS, trackers and data tools to monitor academic implementation, quality and progress across all levels of implementation.

- Ensure data quality and validation: Ensure timely, accurate and complete data; conduct quality audits and field visits to validate implementation data across training,



mentoring, observations and school transformation.

- Experience using data and monitoring systems to track implementation quality and outcomes.

- Analyse implementation data, identify gaps and take evidence based action.

Team Development & Organisational Management (10%)

- Support team members to become academically strong facilitators with excellent content knowledge and classroom understanding.

- Provide regular coaching, shadowing, feedback and academic support to team members.

- Encourage ownership, accountability, reflection and continuous learning within the team.

- Help team members document meaningful classroom and teacher success stories based on evidence.

- Collaborate effectively with programme, MEL, advisory and other cross-functional teams.

Stakeholder Management (5%)

- Support the advisory team to coordinate with government stakeholders at district, block and school levels, supporting academic discussions and reviews, including strong communication for driving operations.

Requirements

Education & Experience

- Masters / Graduate degree in education or a related field (B.Ed., B.A. Education, or equivalent).

- Minimum 1 year of classroom teaching experience is preferable.

- 4–5 years of experience in education, teacher training, or academic project coordination.

- Prior experience in mentoring teachers or fellows and facilitating teacher development programs.

- Experience in conducting blended learning or e-learning content.

- Familiarity with foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) initiatives and classroom practices.

- Experience with coaching and mentoring of teachers in a government school classroom

Knowledge, Skills & Capabilities

- Strong understanding of pedagogy, FLN and effective classroom teaching practices.

- Good knowledge of teacher professional development, adult learning, mentoring and coaching.

- Strong understanding of classroom observation and providing constructive teacher feedback.

- Ability to translate academic strategy into practical classroom and training implementation.

- Strong facilitation and presentation skills.

- Ability to explain academic concepts in simple and practical ways to teachers.

- Excellent writing, report writing, copy editing and documentation skills.

- Strong command of Marathi and English, both spoken and written.

- Solid team leadership and people development capabilities, including coaching, delegation, performance management, feedback and building a culture of ownership and accountability.

- High level of ownership and initiative.

- Strong interpersonal skills and ability to build relationships with teachers, government officials and internal teams.

- Ability to work effectively in dynamic field environments and adapt to changing programme needs.

- Reflective practitioner who is open to learning and continuously improving their own practice.

Location and Compensation

Location: Ahilyanagar, MH. Frequent travel across the Panchayat Samitis and schools in the district.

Compensation: In addition to being part of a young and dynamic learning team, the individual will receive healthy compensation at par with the non-profit sector benchmark for this position, commensurate with the individual’s prior experience and qualifications. The current compensation band offered, based on fit and experience, is 7-10 lakh INR per annum CTC.

Leadership for Equity is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Prohibits Discrimination and Harassment of Any Kind. We do not discriminate on the basis of caste, race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other non-merit factor.

📌 Academic Manager (Ahmednagar)
🏢 Leadership For Skilled Education Foundation
📍 Ahmednagar