The Senior Lead, Numeracy will be based at the New Delhi, India Country Office and will report to the Director, Literacy Program. This is a senior role responsible for leading the strategic design and technical direction of Room to Read’s numeracy program in alignment with the organization’s FLN goals and national priorities such as NIPUN Bharat. The role will require close collaboration with global teams, state governments, and internal program teams, along with periodic travel to program locations.The Senior Lead will anchor the overall vision, design, and quality of numeracy interventions, ensuring that all program components—from teaching-learning materials to teacher professional development and assessment systems—are coherent, research-informed, and scalable across diverse state contexts.
Own and drive the overall vision and strategy for the numeracy program, defining the design architecture, instructional approach, and quality standards in alignment with RtR’s FLN goals and global frameworks.
Lead the translation of global expertise and national priorities into a coherent, high-quality program model, making key design decisions on pedagogy, learning progression, and delivery approaches suited to diverse state contexts.
Set the direction for all teaching-learning material development, including Teacher Guides, student materials, training and coaching guides, assessment and monitoring tools and digital resources, ensuring strong conceptual integrity, usability, and scalability.
Establish and enforce quality benchmarks across all program outputs, with final accountability for the rigor, relevance, and effectiveness of materials and academic frameworks.
Provide strategic oversight to content and academic teams, guiding their work, reviewing outputs, and ensuring alignment with the program’s design principles.
Build and lead a high-performing numeracy team, including setting priorities, mentoring team members, strengthening their technical capabilities, and being hands-on to ensure delivery of high-quality outputs.
Drive innovation in program design and materials, informed by global research, emerging evidence, and field insights, while ensuring practical applicability in government school systems.
Anchor the development of core academic frameworks, learning progressions, pedagogical models, mentoring framework, assessment approaches, ensuring coherence across all program components.
Lead engagement with senior government and partner stakeholders on program design, influencing decisions on curriculum alignment, materials, and implementation approaches.
Institutionalize strong review and feedback systems, using data, field insights, and inputs to continuously refine program design and improve quality at scale.
Facilitate high-level FLN academic sessions during national training events, partner forums, or capacity-building workshops for academic leadership teams.
Review emerging implementation/SLO trends on monthly basis, across projects, to ensure implementation is on track, also design course-correction strategies based on identified implementation or SLO gaps, if needed.
Lead the development and refinement of national annual and quarterly academic strategies and plans for numeracy-focused demonstration and scale-up programs, ensuring alignment with organizational priorities and FLN goals.
Drive structured national review mechanisms with state teams, setting performance benchmarks and ensuring alignment with program design, quality standards, and intended learning outcomes.
Oversee the synthesis and documentation of key academic processes, innovations, and cross-state learnings, and institutionalize these within national knowledge management systems.
Provide strategic guidance to states and regional teams on academic planning and program design, enabling stronger, context-responsive implementation models.
Contribute with high-quality academic inputs (monthly, quarterly, annual), translating multi-state data into strategic insights and actionable recommendations for programs. Also give quality inputs for Donor reports.
Maintain overall accountability for academic progress across states, ensuring adherence to the national FLN framework and driving course correction where required.
Convene and lead national review forums, cross-state learning platforms, and thematic workshops to strengthen alignment, peer learning, and program coherence.
Guide the design and rollout of program interventions across states, including shaping implementation strategies and supporting high-level engagement with state governments.
Lead and manage the numeracy team, including setting priorities, strengthening team capacity, and ensuring high-quality, timely delivery of outputs.
Lead the design and governance of national academic data systems in collaboration with the RME team, ensuring alignment with program goals and usability for decision-making.
Drive the interpretation and use of assessment and monitoring data to generate strategic insights, inform program design improvements, and strengthen learning outcomes.
Oversee the development and maintenance of consolidated academic indicators and datasets to support evidence-based planning and strategic decision-making.
Own and institutionalize a standardized national academic monitoring framework to guide classroom observations and program quality assurance across states.
Develop monitoring tools and processes to ensure alignment with pedagogical standards and FLN objectives.
Support RME to centralized dashboards to track academic performance across states and drive data-informed planning and program redesign.
Provide strategic direction on quality assurance, academic consistency, and monitoring standards across the entire program geography.
Lead participation in national and internal workshops, contributing to material design, training architecture, and strategic program discussions.
Provide high-quality, reflective inputs in state and national review forums, identifying systemic gaps and driving design-level improvements.
Facilitate the transfer of innovations and best practices across program states, ensuring cross-learning and program strengthening at scale.
Lead high-level technical engagement with government stakeholders, contributing to policy discussions, advisory forums, and strategic initiatives related to FLN.
Represent the organization in national and state-level platforms, positioning it as a thought leader in foundational numeracy.
Participate in strategic partnerships discussions with key education stakeholders (SCERT, DIET, district officials), influencing system-level adoption and integration of program approaches.
Provide strategic guidance to strengthen state and district capacity for improving foundational learning outcomes, aligned with NEP 2020 and NIPUN Bharat.
Lead operational oversight to program officers and program associates and support them and Identify gaps in the operational capabilities and plan for their capacity building in discussion with the state manager.
Build the technical and operational capacity of team members, enabling them to deliver high-quality program implementation and stakeholder engagement.
Establish systems for ongoing coaching, feedback, and capability building across teams, aligned with program priorities.
Ensure strong internal coordination across state and national teams to maintain alignment in program design and execution.
Participate in IDTS workshops on material development, training module development and training of trainers.
Attend review meetings at the state/national level and provide reflective feedback on program implementation and design issues. At the same time acts as the conducive way to transfer innovative ideas and practices from the national level (or from other states) on to the field. Escalate any concern/gap areas in the implementation in a timely manner.
Participate in review meeting, training of trainer and any other required meetings or workshop at state/ INCO level.
Oversee preparing regular (monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis, including program data) qualitative reports and documenting event reports, case studies and best practices.
Responsible for high stake donor reporting, developing their annual, half yearly, quarterly and monthly work plan for implementation.
Responsible for preparing Implementation calendar, cash forecast, PRs budget outlook, AP&B and regular tracking of budget management.
Assist in preparing all programmatic and financial reports as required.
Master’s degree in education / social sciences or equivalent preferred.
Minimum 12 years of relevant experience in the education sector. Minimum 8 years of program management experience, preferably in education
In-depth knowledge of foundational Numeracy domain, practices and approaches.
Conceptual knowledge, lesson, and curriculum planning skills in Numeracy.
Strong written and oral communication skills.
Proven ability to work effectively with schools and communities.
Ability to travel regularly to project sites in remote locations.
Room to Read offers a competitive salary with excellent benefits. Benefits include thirteenth month bonus, health insurance and a retirement plan. The non-monetary compensation includes a unique opportunity to be part of an innovative, meaningful, and rapidly growing organization that is changing transforming the lives of millions of children in developing countries on literacy and gender equality in education.
Child Protection Principles
Room to Read is committed to the education and welfare of children and protecting them from abuse and exploitation
Room to Read has zero tolerance for child abuse and exploitation.
All children have the right to be free from abuse and exploitation, including neglect, maltreatment, and physical, mental or sexual violence, injury or abuse.
All children should be treated with respect and dignity.
The well-being of the child is Room to Read’s first priority when dealing with all identified or suspected cases of child abuse.
Room to Read shall integrate child protection into all its organizational strategies, structures and work practices.
Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Principles
Room to Read Representatives must create and maintain an environment that prevents sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.
Room to Read has zero tolerance for adult sexual exploitation and abuse.
Sexual exploitation and abuse are serious violations of fundamental human rights and will not be accepted or tolerated.
All adults should be treated with respect and dignity.
Room to Read implements a survivor-centered approach, putting the survivor’s rights and dignity at the forefront.
Survivors referred to available professional assistance (e.g. mental health counselling), upon consent.
About Room to Read:
Founded in 2000 on the belief that World Change Starts with Educated Children®, Room to Read envisions a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality, where all children have room to read, learn and grow – creating lasting change. Through our Literacy Portfolio, we train and coach teachers of the early grades in literacy instruction; create and publish quality books and curricular materials in local languages; and establish children’s libraries filled with diverse children’s books that can be enjoyed at school and home. Our Gender Equality Portfolio supports adolescents, particularly girls, in developing life skills that promote gender equality, helping them to pursue lifelong learning and make informed decisions.
We support young people of all genders to overcome gender biases and build the knowledge and skills to create a gender-equal world. Room to Read collaborates with local communities, partner organizations, publishers, and governments to test and implement innovative models that can be integrated into the education system to deliver positive outcomes for children at scale. To date, Room to Read has benefited more than 50 million children in 28 countries.
Learn more at www.roomtoread.org.
