We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide.
We work directly with individuals to help them gain the skills, confidence and connections to transform their lives and shape a better world in partnership with the UK. We support them to build networks and explore creative ideas, to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications.
Working with people in over 200 countries and territories, we are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2021–22 we reached 650 million people.
Head of Education, Philippines
Location: Manila, Philippines
Contract Type: Indefinite Contract
Pay Grade: 7
Compensation: 89,481PHP Gross Per Month
Closing date: 03 February 2025 at 20:59 UK Time / 23:59 UK Time
Requirements: You must have the legal right to work in the Philippines at the time of application. We are unable to support with visa sponsorship and relocation.
Role Context - About The Team
This role sits within the Cultural Engagement (CE) Strategic Business Unit (SBU). CE brings together our portfolio of work in arts, education, English, and research. Our portfolio is delivered through a set of globally led programmes that locate our work and impact within our strategic framework. These programmes deliver our key performance indicators and impact ambitions.
British Council’s work in the Philippines aims to (1) strengthen UK-Philippine education partnerships that will enhance quality, inclusion, innovation and sustainability in higher education; and (2) foster growth opportunities for the UK sector, while expending its leadership in the Philippines through strategic policy engagement.
Our work currently focuses on higher education, especially transnational education and English Medium Education. Our flagship programme, Access and Competitiveness through Internationalisation of Higher Education (ACT-IHE), a partnership contract with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), aims to improve quality and competitiveness of Philippine higher education sector through improvements on English Medium Education and transnational education (TNE) partnerships between UK and Philippine academic institutions.
We are also delivering global programmes on student mobility and internationalisation, namely International Student Mobility and Marketing and Alumni UK.
We are also exploring more opportunities in basic education sector, and in non-formal education for young people with a focus on building climate resilience and skills.
Role Purpose - The Job
This role provides integral operational management & leadership to a small team, driving successful development, delivery, impact (including monitoring, evaluation and learning) and financial sustainability of a mixed portfolio of education partnerships, programmes or contracts at country, regional or global level.
This role is responsible for delivery of all higher education education programmes, including our work with Higher Education institutions and governments in the UK and Philippines, alumni, students interested in studying overseas and their influencers, ensuring mutual UK and Philippines benefit as well as compliance with published programme management standards across all areas of financial and operational risk.
The role supports business and partnership development working with the Country Director, manages partner and stakeholder relations and acts as an account manager for major government partners and clients (Commission on Higher Education, Department of Education, Department of Science and Technology).
The role will also work with British Council colleagues across the region and in the UK, sometimes leading, to help deliver benefits in country from regional and globally led initiatives.
The post is based in British Council Philippines, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.
Main Accountabilities
Leadership & management
- Provides technical input and design to education contracts, programmes and projects, assuring quality and impact and managing issues and risks
- Uses digital platforms and technological advancements to improve efficiency, impact and quality of project and/or programme design and delivery
- Incorporates specific actions to address equality, diversity and inclusion priorities in programme delivery
- Manages country portfolio day-to-day ensuring global standards on programme and contract management are achieved
- Direct line management where applicable, with matrix management support provided to sector programme teams in country/across the region as required.
- Ensures effective financial management and compliance -manages and delivers to target, budgets, profitability, timelines, and to corporate quality standards in all areas
- Monitors, reviews and ensures that the country portfolio is achieving agreed impact measures, and monitoring, evaluation and learning and reporting is in place against Cultural Engagement’s Strategy 2025 and FCDO key performance indicators.
Strategy and/or planning
- Leads on planning process for designated portfolio in country in accordance with global and regional sector strategies and programming
- Contributes to regional/country business strategy
- Strategic leadership of design, development, delivery and closure of projects and or programmes as needed
- Develop and nurtures internal relationships across Cultural Engagement within the region
- Considers the role of digital products, services and channels in optimising the impact and sustainability of the portfolio, working with regional marketing and digital colleagues.
Relationship & Stakeholders
- Builds and maintains business critical relationships with key local clients and partners with a view to identifying new business opportunities and partnerships
- Supports the government and institutional relationships that the UK needs to succeed in region/country
- Leads on relationships with a range of stakeholders and partners at a sector level
- Represents the British Council externally and internally
Sector/subject expertise
- Uses sector expertise to provide insight and content for corporate responses to public consultations in country, representing British Council’s perspective
- Provides up-to-date and well-informed briefings on current and emerging matters in area of expertise, conducting detailed analysis and research, contributing cutting-edge sector knowledge and content to proposals
- Identifies and develops opportunities for the sector to build their work in country/region
- Supports internal capacity building, ensuring that teams can access appropriate and cost-effective L&D opportunities and grow their sector knowledge and skills
Brand and market positioning
- Promotes the UK education sector in country/region
- Works with wider country leadership to ensure British Council’s value proposition and support to the UK sector is clear, agreed and communicated.
- Ensures that British Council’s reputation for quality and as a valued not-for-profit partner remains high and contributes to our organisational mission of building trust between the UK and other countries.
Programme management/ Business development
- Contributes to business and partnership development for the portfolio, aligning with country/regional and corporate priorities, systems and processes
- Contributes to the development of strategic responses to partner/ client needs as efficiently and effectively as possible, including developing and promoting new ideas for services
- Contribute to the development of internal and external communications materials to highlight impact and learning, as well as effectively positioning for new opportunities
Commercial & Financial Management
- Directly plans and controls specific cost variables (rather than the total budget) to meet established targets, ensuring compliance with all relevant corporate financial systems and processes
- Using agreed financial procedures/templates, conducts monthly and year-end analysis and reporting on income and expenditure/profitability and risk/pipeline/actual performance versus plan targets.
Minimum/essential
Requirements of the Role:
- Foundation-level knowledge for HE & Science
- In-depth understanding of local education market
- Extensive experience of working in Education particularly Higher Education
- Demonstrable expertise of programme management, ideally in the Education sector
- Experience of embedding M&E into programme design to support development of systematic evidence
- Knowledge of UK and international policy in the sector and approaches to internationalisation.
- Active and up-to-date network of senior level sector contacts
- Experience of collaborating effectively with others to develop solutions to issues where there is not an established framework
- Confident user of information technology (Word; Excel; PowerPoint), Microsoft 365 functionality and working knowledge of British Council SAP system (aptitude if recruiting externally)
- Able to manage delivery of digital events on basic platforms (Microsoft Teams) ensuring all corporate standards are met, including those for accessibility and safeguarding
- Ability to analyse relevant equality issues and identify opportunities to address these in the portfolio
Desirable
- Business and partnership development experience to support business growth
A connected and trusted UK in a more connected and trusted world.
Equality , Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Statement
The British Council is committed to policies and practices of equality, diversity and inclusion across everything we do. We support all staff to make sure their behaviour is consistent with this commitment. We want to address under representation and encourage applicants from under-represented groups, in particular, but not exclusively, on grounds of ethnicity and disability. All disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria are guaranteed an interview and we have Disability Confident Employer Status. We welcome discussions about specific requirements or adjustments to enable participation and engagement in our work and activities.
The British Council is committed to safeguarding children, young people and adults who we work with.
We believe that all children and adults everywhere in the world deserve to live in safe environments and have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in article 19, UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) 1989.
Appointment to positions where there is direct involvement with vulnerable groups will be dependent on thorough checks being completed; these will include qualification checks, reference checks, identity & criminal record checks in line with legal requirements and with the British Council’s Safeguarding policies for Adults and Children.
If you have any problems with your application please email askhr@britishcouncil.org
Please note: Applications to this role can only be considered when made through the Apply section of our careers website. Our ‘ASK HR’ email is only to be used in case of a technical issue encountered when applying through the careers website. Emails with supporting statements and CV/Resumes sent to this email address will not be reviewed and will be deleted.
