Programme Officer, Thailand

ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT/TEAM 

The British Council has a long-standing reputation of 66 years in Thailand as a well-respected cultural relations organisation, creating opportunities and building relationships between Thailand and the UK in the areas of English, Education, Science and the Arts. It operates from its large main Centre in Siam Square as well as four teaching branches in Bangkok and one in Chiang Mai. We work with a wide range of public, private and not-for-profit sector partners from both countries.

In Thailand we focus on three areas to meet Thailand and UK priorities 

•Raising levels of English 
•Internationalising higher education and science 
•Supporting the development of a creative economy

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING AND WHY

The Programme Officer provides project and administration support to a range of projects/programmes/contracts as appropriate managing project resources and activities to ensure that project objectives are delivered on time, on budget and to the highest level of quality to ensure impact. Supporting programme team to deliver a successful portfolio by ensuring programme knowledge and data is gathered, recorded and shared effectively.

WHAT IS INTERESTING ABOUT IT

This post will work primarily in the second theme of Internationalising higher education and science. We aim to provide a global dimension to higher education in Thailand. We support reform efforts, establishing international partnerships in higher education providing UK provision in Thailand and establishing research partnerships. We have supported the establishment of almost twenty transnational education links between universities in Thailand and their counterparts in the UK.

Our educational promotion work, directly and indirectly, leads to some 8,000 Thai students studying in the UK every year and Thailand is ranked 9th for non-EU countries sending students to study at UK and 4thth amongst countries in East Asia. Thailand will be leading a cluster of Thailand, Vietnam and Burma in supporting UK educational institutions with marketing UK education (Education Services).

We focus on boosting prosperity and social development through stronger Thai-UK research links, enabled by the Newton Fund. With the Thailand Research Fund we are engaging with over 70 universities from Thailand and the UK and with a total of 1000 researchers to date in workshops and exchanges. In order to raise awareness of the importance of science communication and develop the next generation of scientists, we launched FameLab in 2016 with support from the Ministry of Science and Technology and its agencies, reaching 25 million people across Thailand.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

You will bring along at least one to two years of relevant experience in project or programme management in the development field or government sectors with knowledge and experience of finance and administration work. You are required to communicate and work with project stakeholders and other internal colleagues so good interpersonal skills and ability to work in teams is important. 

A first degree, preferably in public policy, political or social science, public administration, development studies or in another relevant area (such as economics, sociology, law, public health) along with fluency in both written and spoken Thai and English is essential.

BENEFITS OF WORKING AT THE BRITISH COUNCIL

- Flexible working opportunities (working from home / flexible hours)
- Smart working (most of us hot-desk!)
- Enjoy more than 20 days of Annual leave (depending on role grade)
- Professional development opportunities – we offer a broad range of professional courses to large corporations and that is available for our staff members too! 

https://tinyurl.com/THA-AES-0022e