Job Description

Job Title: State Project Lead – Bihar

Type: Full-time

Team: Foundational Learning

Location: Patna, Bihar

About Central Square Foundation (CSF)

Founded in 2012, Central Square Foundation is a non-profit philanthropic foundation working with the vision of ensuring quality school education for all children in India. CSF has a mission focused on ensuring high-quality foundational learning for all children in India. To achieve this, CSF works closely with state governments to improve foundational learning outcomes for children. To know more about us and our work, visit www.centralsquarefoundation.org.

About the Foundational Learning team

The Foundational Learning (FL) team at Central Square Foundation supports States in designing and implementing state missions to ensure FLN learning outcomes for all children. Spread across states, the Project Management Units (PMUs) work closely with state bodies to co‑create mission goals, identify critical workstreams, set indicators of success, and regularly review mission progress.

About the Role

The State Project Lead will anchor CSF's engagement with the Government of Bihar, working at the intersection of policy, systems, and implementation. The role requires strategic leadership, strong government engagement, and the ability to drive execution across multiple workstreams in a complex public systems environment.

While the role is situated within the foundational learning ecosystem, we welcome candidates from education, public health, governance, nutrition, livelihoods, and other development sectors who bring strong experience in government engagement, systems strengthening, project leadership, and team management.

The State Project Lead will:

• Lead CSF's Bihar program strategy and implementation in alignment with state priorities
• Build and sustain strong relationships with senior government leadership and partner organisations
• Drive execution across multiple workstreams in collaboration with government and internal CSF teams
• Support systems strengthening efforts through data, reviews, capacity building, and field engagement
• Lead and mentor multidisciplinary state and district teams in Bihar

The role will require close engagement with senior leadership including the Director, Primary Education; Director, SCERT; State Project Director, BEPC; Additional Chief Secretary (Education); and middle management across departments to support timely decision-making, implementation, and strengthening of the FLN mission.

Key Responsibilities

Government Engagement & Partnerships

• Build trusted relationships with senior state officials and ecosystem partners
• Represent CSF in high-level reviews, consultations, and decision-making forums of the Education Department
• Support agenda-setting and facilitate strategic discussions with government stakeholders
• Drive day-to-day coordination with government counterparts to support implementation and resolve operational issues
• Support collaboration and alignment with partner organisations working in the FLN ecosystem alongside SCERT and BEPC

Strategy & Project Leadership

• Co-create and refine project strategies with the state government and internal leadership
• Identify key system-level bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement
• Bring cross-sector and cross-state learnings to strengthen project design and delivery

Project Implementation & Systems Strengthening

• Lead implementation of key FLN workstreams, including teacher mentoring, capacity building, assessments, academic support, and tech-enabled monitoring systems
• Work with SCERT and government departments to strengthen academic materials and support timely printing and distribution to schools
• Lead the system-led assessment workstream, including assessment design, assessor training, data collection, analysis, and reporting
• Data, Reviews & Decision Support

• Support evidence-based decision-making through data analysis and regular project reviews
• Set up/strengthen use of dashboards, monitoring systems, and feedback loops at state and district levels
• Strengthen review and monitoring mechanisms to support data-driven implementation and continuous improvement
• Support documentation, reporting, and communication with senior leadership on progress, risks, and key decisions

Team Leadership & Cross-functional Coordination

• Lead and mentor a high-performing team at state level and in select districts
• Support performance management, task allocation, and team development
• Coordinate effectively with internal program, academics, M&E, and communications teams

Desired Qualifications & Experience

• Post graduate in development studies, management, rural development or any related field
• 9–12 years of relevant experience in program leadership, systems strengthening, stakeholder management, advocacy, or implementation roles in the social sector
• Strong experience working with government systems, preferably at the state level
• Demonstrated experience managing teams and multi-stakeholder programs
• Experience in sectors such as education, public health, governance, nutrition, livelihoods, or related areas
• Experience in foundational learning / education is preferred, but not essential for candidates with strong transferable leadership and systems experience
• Strong understanding of Bihar's governance context, developmental challenges, and district-level realities will be preferred

Skills & Competencies

• Strong stakeholder management and relationship-building skills
• Strategic thinking with strong execution orientation
• Ability to navigate complex public systems and ambiguity
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities
• Comfort with using data to inform decisions
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

Why This Role Matters

This role offers an opportunity to work closely with the Government of Bihar to strengthen systems that impact millions of children, while bringing cross-sector learning and implementation experience into one of India's most important public system reform contexts.

Compensation: Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and commensurate with the candidate's experience and qualifications.

Apply: Interested candidates can apply by clicking on the link in the post.