PL/SPL - Curriculum and Pedagogy
Bengaluru, IndiaFull-timeMid · 5-6 years
About this role
About Mantra4Change
Mantra4Change is a non-profit organisation working with governments to transform public education systems in India — so that millions of children can learn better, grow stronger, and thrive. We partner closely with state education departments to design and implement reforms at scale, strengthening leadership, governance, and classroom practice across public schools. Our work is grounded in the belief that lasting change happens when governments lead their own transformation.
Through long-term collaboration with institutions such as SCERTs and DIETs, Mantra4Change focuses on developing school leaders and system leaders, building collaborative school cultures, and engaging communities as partners in learning. By combining strong on-ground implementation with continuous learning, we help systems identify what works, scale it responsibly, and sustain improvement over time.
Our mission is to enable leaders at every level of the system to drive continuous improvement, creating a virtuous cycle in which strong leadership, collective ownership, and systemic reform deliver better learning and more equitable outcomes for every child.
Read more - www.mantra4change.org
About the role
This role sits within Mantra4Change's Research & Design function and owns the design, refinement, and field quality of our Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Vocational Education (VE) work, spanning curriculum and pedagogy, teacher-facing assets, teacher capacity building, and government stakeholder engagement across our program states.
This is not a generalist R&D role. It requires someone who has actually built and taught curriculum, who understands what makes a PBL or a vocational module work in a real classroom with a real teacher and real students, and who can translate that understanding into scalable, DIKSHA/LMS-compatible design for government school systems. Equally, this person operates within M4C's broader R&D mandate: generating research-backed insight, contributing to policy positioning, and not just producing content in isolation.
Note on levels: This JD covers both Program Lead (PL) and Senior Program Lead (SPL) postings for the PBL/VE unit. Core responsibilities are shared; scope, ownership, and seniority requirements scale up at the SPL level, as marked below.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Curriculum, Pedagogy & Design:
- Lead end-to-end design, piloting, and iteration of PBL and/or Vocational Education curriculum for grade 6 and above, aligned to NCF-SE 2023, PARAKH, and State/NCERT textbooks.
- Design high-quality, classroom-ready teacher-facing assets, lesson plans, self-learning modules, facilitator handbooks, micro-improvement projects, and DIKSHA/LMS-compatible digital content.
- Develop and refine competency-based assessment tools aligned to PBL/VE learning outcomes and PARAKH's competency framework.
- Ensure design is pedagogically rigorous and simultaneously practical, i.e., deliverable by an average government school teacher with the training and support actually available in the field.
- Set academic quality standards, review rubrics, and version-control processes to maintain content consistency across states and content creators.
- (SPL) Own the design philosophy and quality bar for the PBL/VE portfolio across states; adjudicate design trade-offs escalated from PLs.
- Teacher Capacity Building
- Design and deliver teacher professional development programs and training frameworks for PBL/VE, including train-the-trainer models for government cascade structures (DIETs, BRC/CRC, Guru Goshti-type forums).
- Translate curriculum design into facilitator guides and training content that build teacher ownership, not just compliance.
- Build in classroom-observation and feedback loops to test whether training actually changes practice, and revise design based on that evidence.
- (SPL) Set the overall capacity-building strategy and training architecture for PBL/VE across program states; mentor PLs designing state-specific adaptations.
- Research, Evidence & Advocacy
- Conduct secondary and primary research (classroom observations, teacher interviews, field pilots) to generate insight that directly informs curriculum and training design.
- Document field evidence, case studies, design briefs, working papers, that position M4C's PBL/VE point of view externally with government and ecosystem partners.
- Contribute research-backed inputs to policy conversations and knowledge products related to PBL, VE, and 21st-century competencies.
- (SPL) Represent M4C's PBL/VE work in external research, policy, and government forums.
- Government & Ecosystem Engagement
- Support program teams on academic front by working directly with government stakeholders (DIETs, block/cluster leadership, State officials) to contextualize, pilot, and get sign-off on curriculum and training design.
- Collaborate with content vendors, external experts and partner organisations for creating reviewing deliverables against M4C's pedagogical and quality standards.
- Program & Project Management
- Own end-to-end delivery of PBL/VE design workstreams, planning, timelines, cross-functional coordination with Program teams in the relevant states.
- Use MEL data and field feedback to adaptively course-correct design and rollout.
- (SPL) Own multiple complex workstreams simultaneously; manage escalations and cross-state prioritization.
- Team Leadership & Mentoring
- Contribute to peer review and quality-checking of teammates' design outputs.
- (SPL) Mentor and build capacity of PLs in curriculum design, instructional rigor, and stakeholder navigation. Foster ownership and independent workstream leadership within the team.
Experience & Competencies Required
- Must have experience working with government education stakeholders (State/District education departments, DIETs, BRC/CRC, or equivalent)
- PL: minimum 3 years of relevant experience (postgraduates) / 5 years (others).
- SPL: minimum 5-6 years of relevant experience, with at least 2 years leading curriculum/training design work end-to-end and some experience mentoring or reviewing others' work.
- Must have Master's degree in Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Public Policy, or related field (Bachelor's considered for PL with strong demonstrated experience).
- Must demonstrated curriculum/content design experience in Project-Based Learning and/or Vocational Education and/or deep curricular expertise preferably in STEM, not generic instructional design.
- Must have classroom teaching experience, or equivalent close-contact experience designing for teachers
- Must have experience designing and/or delivering teacher professional development or training-of-trainers programs.
- Must have experience creating teacher-facing assets, lesson plans, facilitator guides, self-learning modules, training decks, that have actually been used in classrooms or training rooms.
- Must have the ability to translate complex pedagogical concepts into simple, teacher-ready, classroom-usable formats.
- Must have strong technical and academic writing; comfort using Google Suite and AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT) in design workflows.
- Must have proficiency in English (read/write/speak); working proficiency in Hindi/Kannada or other relevant state language strongly preferred, given direct field and government engagement.
- Good to have familiarity with DIKSHA.
- Good to have experience with design tools (Canva, Vyond, or similar) for teacher-facing digital content.
- Good to have exposure to design thinking, systems thinking, or MEL practices in an education context.
Why Mantra
- A trust-based work environment that encourages independent thinking, questioning, and building solutions
- An open and collaborative culture where teams are accessible and diverse perspectives are valued
- 24 paid leave and 12 calendar holidays
- Health insurance coverage of up to ₹5 LPA for the employee and their dependents
- One menstrual leave each month for women employees
- ₹5,000 L&D fund to pursue job-related learning opportunities
Remuneration: Annual CTC of INR 8 onwards (depending on competency and experience)
Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, with periodic travel to field sites and partner states required.