Tom Pugh Email & Phone Number

London, England, United Kingdom

I started and have built an Education portfolio within the Human Development practice at Genesis.My project roles during this time have included:• Team Leader of ILO-funded ‘Provision of Childcare Services through Cooperatives to Support Economic Opportunities for Women’ in Palestine• Project Director of UNICEF-funded ‘Test a pilot assessment tool for benchmarking policy support for universal parenting’ in South Africa• Lead ECE Expert of World Bank-funded ‘Supporting ECE Strengthening’ in Lebanon• Team Leader of USAID-funded, EDC-implemented ‘Higher Education Employability Toolkit’ in Africa and Latin America & the Caribbean• Researcher of WESGRO-funded ‘Research Study on investment in education’ in the Western Cape, South Africa• Project Director of the BMGF-funded ‘Numeracy Research and Development (NuRD) project’ in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia• Team Leader of UNICEF-funded ‘Institutional Consultancy to develop the Investment Cases for Children’ in Bosnia & Herzegovina• Team Leader of UNICEF-funded ‘investment case for early childhood development’ in Rwanda• Team Leader supporting the Government of Azerbaijan on a financing study for early childhood education and care (ECEC).• Project Director of UNICEF-funded ‘Support development of a costed national multi- sectoral integrated ECD strategy 2024-30’ in Uganda• Education specialist on UNICEF-funded support to the Ministry of Education in Oman• Team Leader of UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited Landscaping Report in Zambia• Team Leader of UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited Landscaping Report in Sudan• Provincial lead supporting the Limpopo Provincial Education Department of a diagnostic study to address education underperformance in 2020• Team Leader of ‘Developing a costed Strategy for Education Reforms (2025 – 2035), a budgeted Action Plan (2025 – 2027) and functional review’ in Montenegro• Non-key expert on EU-funded ‘Technical Assistance to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education’ in Lebanon

Beirut District, Lebanon

Tom worked on the FCDO-funded Support to RACE II programme from beginning to end. The programme was a technical assiatance, capacity development and implementation support programme to support public education of all children in Lebanon (whether Lebanese or refugee). He led on the bid writing, embedded a team in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and at stages across the programme’s 3.5 year lifespan played the role of Programme Director, Team Leader and Education Specialist.In Lebanon, Tom led on the education quality components of the programme including: a) supporting the Ministry to link planning to budgeting in their new Education 5 Year plan; b) working towards a coherent inclusion policy which included provision for students with complex or combined special needs, b) improving lesson observation tools to help teacher coaches to structure their trajectories of support to struggling teachers, and c) engaging with global forums on sharing Lebanese best practices and learning from other countries.As part of this work, Tom led a 20-person team of consultants embedded in the Ministry through a complex programme of work which included public financial management, upgrading inclusive school facilities, working with Regional Education Offices, and process streamlining and standardisation across the Ministry. He also was co-author of a Capacity Needs Assessment for the Lebanese Education Sector (October 2019), the Lebanese Education Sector 5 Year Plan (August 2021) and has published research with Ministry counterparts on the Lebanese response to COVID (September 2021).Tom programme managed the midline evaluation of the FCDO-funded, UNICEF-implemented Girls’ Education Project (GEP) Phase 3 in northern Nigeria and led on the endline dissemination of findings.

London, United Kingdom

My responsibilities included:• Project managing a range of education programmes across the education portfolio• Providing technical inputs on ASI’s international education programmes, including those in Kenya, Rwanda, Pakistan and Syria• Sector analysis and diversification planning as part of our business development with bilateral and multilateral international donors

Nairobi, Kenya

Bridge International Academies is the world’s largest chain of primary and pre-primary schools bringing world-class education to the poorest of the poor. My responsibilities at Bridge included:• Oversight of the teaching and learning occurring in Bridge’s 4000 classrooms across Kenya• Monitoring educational outcomes and relating these to both student growth and teacher performance• Ensuring that quality is not compromised whilst expanding at a rapid rate (50 new schools per term)• Designing data reporting systems and analysing the resulting data on a huge scale (over 100,000 pupils)• Expansion of the programme into new markets, such as Uganda, Nigeria and India• Experimentation and adoption of market-based approaches in the classroom, such as performance-related teacher bonuses and pupil voucher systems.

Johannesburg Area, South Africa

The Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy is South Africa's largest primary school education project and encompasses 880 under-performing schools in the province. My responsibilities at Class Act included:• Implementation of a state-funded education project in 368 underperforming, urban schools• Direct management responsibility for all of Class Act’s 148 coaches and 9 supervisors • Strategic planning and support of the coaching and mentoring of approximately 4320 teachers in these schools through regular visits from Class Act’s employees• Medium-term planning within the project including professional development of staff, enacting sustainability measures and maximising project success.• Maintaining and improving a management information system within the project

Johannesburg

JET Education Services is a non-profit organisation that works with government, the private sector, international development agencies and education institutions to improve the quality of education and the relationship between education, skills development and the world of work. Whilst at JET, my responsibilities included:• Education sector research- Analysing areas which the Department of Basic Education had identified as areas of weakness and researching possible interventions and partnerships which could address these..• Project design and implementation management- including oversight of design and implementation aspects of the organisation’s school and district improvement projects.• Project monitoring – including preparation of complex databases and dashboards to monitor specific project aspects in detail for sustainable reporting to donors and government.• Evaluation reports- including evaluating JET’s programmes and projects, often in conjunction with stakeholders and through both formative and summative evaluation reports.• Proposal writing- including the coordination and writing of numerous proposals for future projects in response to both government and funders’ requirements.

Johannesburg Area, South Africa

Mathematics and Economics teacher in Grade 7Member of the School Governing Body

London, United Kingdom

Classroom teacher in Year 5/6 (a multi-grade classroom).Subject coordinator of Science/Religious EducationElected to the School Governing Body

Master Of Chemistry, Chemistry

Master Of Education (Med), Educational Policy

Pgce, Education, Qualified Teacher Status (Primary)