About Pratham
Pratham Education Foundation (Pratham) is one of the largest education NGOs in India with a record of innovative, rigorously evaluated programs that have inspired similar programs across three continents. With a history spanning 30 years, Pratham’s work today extends from programs for early and elementary years to girls and women, and youth skilling. Through programs covering 24 states and Union Territories, in an average year, Pratham usually reaches over 7 million children and youth. This is achieved through a combination of efforts: directly working with children and youth in communities, as well as through collaborations with state and district-level governments.
Pratham has received notable awards such as the Lui Che Woo Prize, WISE Prize for Innovation, Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Henry R Kravis Prize in Leadership and the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year for Public Service. Pratham also received the 2021 Yidan Prize for Education Development and the Yashraj Bharati Samman in 2025.
For more details, please visit: www.pratham.org
Background
Pratham Education Foundation’s Early Years Programs aims to strengthen the quality of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) by transforming Anganwadi Centres into inclusive, child-friendly, and joyful learning spaces. Working closely with the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) system, the program focuses on strengthening classroom processes, caregiver engagement, mentoring systems, and government capacity while developing scalable models for diverse contexts. The programs adopt a demonstration-to-scale approach, where Demonstration Anganwadi Centres serve as learning hubs for neighbouring catchment centres through continuous mentoring, sector meetings, peer learning, and government-led capacity building. It also works closely with communities to strengthen responsive caregiving, increase participation of fathers and families, and position Anganwadi Centres as vibrant community learning spaces.
Pratham seeks to recruit a Manager, SBCC, Early Years Program to provide technical and programmatic leadership for implementation, mentoring, government engagement, curriculum strengthening, community mobilisation, documentation, and scale-up across program geographies. The role requires strong expertise in ECCE, systems strengthening, stakeholder management, and program design, with the ability to translate field learning into scalable implementation models.
The Manager, SBCC will work closely with central teams, government stakeholders, and field teams to strengthen implementation quality, institutionalise effective practices, and support large-scale implementation through government systems. The Manager will be required to travel to program locations across geographies to support implementation reviews, planning workshops, field observations, stakeholder consultations, campaign activities, and mentoring visits.
Key Responsibilities
1. Communication: Designing Audience-Centred Communication Strategies
- Design and strengthen communication strategies that respond to the needs of diverse audiences, including families, fathers and mothers, Anganwadi Workers (AWWs), supervisors, government officials, volunteers, and community stakeholders.
- Develop clear, culturally relevant, and evidence-based communication frameworks to promote early childhood development, responsive caregiving, school readiness, inclusion, gender equality, and social-emotional learning.
- Create communication materials and campaigns using interpersonal, community-based, digital, and mass communication channels suitable for low-literacy and diverse contexts.
- Develop communication toolkits, facilitator guides, visual resources, and knowledge products that support program implementation and government capacity building.
- Develop and implement internal communication strategies that build awareness and understanding of the program’s content packages, tools, and resources across teams, enabling higher adoption, consistent use, and effective integration into implementation.
- Support dissemination of program learnings, evidence, and innovations through reports, case studies, digital platforms, workshops, and public engagement initiatives.
2. Behaviour Change: Strengthening Caregiving and Frontline Practices
- Design and institutionalise Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) strategies that promote responsive caregiving practices, active father engagement, early learning opportunities at home, and regular participation in Anganwadi programs.
- Support program teams in integrating behaviour change approaches into community platforms such as ECCE Days, Bal Melas, home visits, parent meetings, and demonstration events.
- Build the capacity of field teams, AWWs, supervisors, and government stakeholders to facilitate behaviour change conversations using participatory and reflective approaches.
- Develop practical communication tools and engagement strategies that encourage adoption and sustained practice of desired behaviours among families and frontline workers.
- Use field insights and evidence to continuously refine behaviour change strategies and improve program effectiveness.
3. Social Change: Influencing Systems, Norms, and Community Ownership
- Design strategies that address social and cultural barriers affecting children’s development, including gender norms, disability inclusion, shared caregiving, and equitable participation in early learning.
- Promote community ownership by engaging mothers, fathers, extended families, local leaders, volunteers, and community institutions as active partners in children’s learning and development.
- Work closely with ICDS and other government stakeholders to embed communication and behaviour change approaches within existing systems and service delivery platforms.
- Support the development of community mobilisation strategies that strengthen trust in Anganwadi Centres as inclusive learning spaces and promote collective responsibility for young children.
- Document and disseminate evidence on social norm change, community participation, and systems strengthening to inform program design, policy engagement, and scale.
4. Monitoring, Learning and Program Strengthening
- Conduct field visits, stakeholder consultations, and implementation reviews to understand communication effectiveness, behaviour change outcomes, and community engagement patterns.
- Develop indicators and simple monitoring mechanisms to assess communication reach, behaviour adoption, and social change outcomes.
- Document implementation learnings, reflective notes, case studies, and evidence to strengthen program quality and knowledge management.
- Collaborate with program, research, and monitoring teams to continuously improve communication, behaviour change, and community engagement strategies.
- Contribute to the ongoing strengthening of the program through innovation, evidence generation, and cross-program learning.
Required Qualifications and Experience
- Master’s degree in Education, Early Childhood Education, Social Sciences, Development Studies, Psychology, Public Policy, Communication, or related fields.
- Minimum 7-10 years of experience in education, ECCE, social development, community engagement, or large-scale program implementation.
- Strong understanding of ECCE, foundational learning, school readiness, caregiver engagement, social and behaviour change communication, inclusion, and community-based approaches.
- Experience in designing and facilitating capacity-building workshops, communication processes, and participatory learning platforms.
- Strong program planning, coordination, implementation, and stakeholder management skills.
- Excellent documentation, writing, research, and synthesis abilities.
- Ability to translate complex ideas into practical and contextualised implementation approaches.
- Experience of working with government systems, especially ICDS or education departments, will be preferred.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills in English and Hindi. Knowledge of regional languages will be an added advantage.
- Ability to work independently, manage multiple priorities, and deliver high-quality outputs within timelines.
- Solution-oriented approach with comfort in navigating evolving programmatic contexts and ambiguity.
- Willingness to travel extensively across programme locations.
Reporting and Collaboration
The Manager, SBCC will report to the Lead, Early Years and work closely with central teams, field teams, government stakeholders, and community-based actors. The role requires close collaboration across functions to strengthen program quality, mentoring systems, government ownership, documentation, and scale-up of the Early Years Programs.
Location: Delhi
Application Procedure:
To apply, fill out the Google form link here: https://forms.gle/9bsJxC2pC4rA7Eza9
Incomplete applications will not be considered. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for subsequent rounds: telephonic/online interview, written assignments, field round and a final interview.
Note: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we will not be able to provide individual responses to every applicant and will reach out only to shortlisted candidates. We appreciate your understanding and patience.
