We’re hiring a Project Administrator! (based in Stellenbosch)

Hi education folk

We’ve recently been awarded a grant by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and DFID to do research on exceptional township and rural primary schools in three provinces – Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. I will be leading the project together with a great team of co-investigators and researchers: Ursula Hoadley (UCT), Jaamia Galant (UCT), Nick Taylor (JET), Servaas van der Berg (ReSEP), Gabi Wills (ReSEP) and Linda Zuze (HSRC).

Given that we will be using a matched-pair approach, the aim of the project is to to firstly identify at least 10 high-performing township/rural schools in each of the three provinces and then match those schools to ‘typical’ neighbouring schools (thus 60 schools in total). The project will run for 2.5 years (beginning June 2016) and will involve in-depth qualitative research, administering and analysing assessments, creating new school-leadership and management instruments and analysing the data emerging from the project.

At the moment we are looking for a part time (50%) project administrator to help us with the administration relating to the project. The full job-advert can be found here. I include a short extract:

The ideal candidate should be an efficient and organised person with some experience in managing the administrative side of academic projects. They should be friendly and able to communicate well, as well as plan effectively and take initiative to solve problems as they arise. They should also be able to liaise with (1) the funders – DFID/ESRC, (2) Stellenbosch University finance and administration personnel, and (3) the 5 co- investigators as well as other researchers and field-workers. The job will include following up with government officials, managing flights and accommodation, planning reporting cycles, managing time-sheets, budgets and funding claims, proof-reading and printing questionnaires etc.

They should also be friendly 🙂 Basically we’re looking for a go-to admin guru to help us with this project. If your skills and experience are such that you would also be able to help on the non-admin research side (doing research-assistant work or interviews/assessment) then we may involve you in more than an administrative role. However this would be on top of your administrative responsibilities, and in such a case the remuneration is somewhat negotiable. It is a part-time position and it’s based at Stellenbosch University (in the Economics Department) so remuneration would be in line with university salary scales (I believe it is about post-level 11, although it would be 50% of the amount stated here) and partially dependent on qualifications and/or experience.

If you’re interested in working with this great team on an exciting new project please do apply 🙂 (and if you know of anyone who may be interested please forward this on to them!)

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 12 May 2016