About this role
Education Specialist (Early Childhood Development)
The
Education
- Specialist (Early Childhood Development) is part of the Equitable and resilient services for primary health care, learning and skills working group. This group leads the implementation of the CPD outcome on equitable and resilient services that boost children’s nutrition, mental health, learning and skills, by strengthening health and education systems to deliver integrated PHC, nutrition, MHPSS and quality basic and secondary education for all children and adolescents. Its function is to translate this priority into integrated policy packages, service delivery models and scalable solutions across the subregion, ensuring that equity, inclusion and climate-resilience are embedded in the expansion of health and education services and that socio-emotional learning and future-ready skills are systematically advanced in all 12 countries.
The team is led by the Assistant Representative for Equitable and Resilient Services for Primary Health, Learning and Skills (Belize) and includes seven NOC specialists. The specialist profiles have been defined directly against the CPD outputs under this outcome, so that each post is anchored in a specific strand of work (early learning, foundational learning, policy and public finance, PHC/MHPSS, PHC/nutrition and Early Childhood Development), while together they form a complementary skills mix that covers the full range of expertise required to achieve the intended results. The working group is comprised of the following:
Education
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Specialist (Early Learning) in Belize, Education Specialist (ECD) in Suriname, Education Specialist (Foundational Learning & Skills) in Guyana, Education Specialist (Policy & Budget) in Barbados, Health Specialist (Primary Health Care & Mental Health) in Suriname, Health Specialist (Policy & Budget) in Jamaica, and Health Specialist (Primary Health Care & Nutrition) in Barbados.
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How can you make a difference?
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The
Education
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Specialist (Early Childhood Development), reports to the Assistant Representative for Equitable and Resilient Services for Primary Health, Learning and Skills, P4., located in Belize, in close day-to day coordination with the in-country Lead in Suriname. The incumbent contributes to the achievement of education results across the Caribbean Multi-Country Programme (MCP) and supports collective action, knowledge exchange, innovation, and cross-country collaboration to advance shared programme priorities and outcomes throughout the Multi-Country Office.
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The
Education
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Specialist (Early Childhood Development) provides dedicated technical leadership on early childhood development and nurturing care across the multi-country platform, strengthening ECD as a cross-sectoral function spanning health, nutrition, MHPSS and early learning. The post reinforces the learning and skills agenda beyond the leadership level, working alongside the education specialists in Barbados, Belize and Guyana and the evidence function to address acute gaps and embed ECD indicators into programme design. This position supports children from pregnancy and early childhood through school entry, to be developmentally on track and ready to learn through integrated nurturing-care approaches and equitable access to quality early learning.
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Based in Suriname, the position leverages the context and ECD challenges to strengthen UNICEF’s capacity to address critical issues affecting children. Through improved geographical distribution of technical expertise, the
Education
- Specialist (ECD) ensures more equitable and responsive support to high-need country context throughout the region. The
Education
- Specialist (ECD) will work in close coordination with the
Education
- Specialist (Early Learning) and the Health & Nutrition Specialist (Primary Health Care & Nutrition) to address and improve these outputs.
The key functions and accountabilities are:
- Technical Leadership on Early Childhood Development in Education
- Support