Individual Consultant for calibration toolkit (Open for both National and International)

Consultant Teaching & Training Programme & Policy

Overview

Support development of local education plans aligned to national strategies

You have:

• Masters degree in education management and/or planning, or experience in a related area.
• A minimum of eight years of demonstrated capacity and experience in supporting planning processes in Lower (Middle) Income Countries that have a decentralized governance structure.
• Good understanding of federal structures and local governance.
• Experience and expertise in developing local level education sector plans and budgets.
• Experience in gender transformative planning and budgeting.
• Good written and oral communication skills and openness and willingness to interact with different stakeholders.
• Extensive knowledge of the national education plans and institutional setup of education sectors.
• Experience working with government ministries including the Ministry of Education in developing countries.
• A minimum of five years of demonstrated capacity and experience in the context of Nepal education sector for National Consultant.
• Able and willing to conduct field travel for local consultations.

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, education.

The School Education Sector Plan (SESP) was developed as a long-term sector plan (2022-2032) to succeed the School Sector Development Plan (SSDP) and facilitate the country’s long-term goal and ambitions for education. A highly decentralized institutional structure has emerged over the years following the ratification of the 2015 Nepal Constitution, which provisioned the establishment of federal, provincial, and local tiers of government. This decentralization presents opportunities in the long-term to enable all levels of government in responding to specific challenges and contexts of their areas of respective governance.

Many of the funds, functions and functionaries that had pre-2015 been managed and directed by central level authorities and channelled through District Education Offices (DEOs) have now been transferred to the Local Governments (LGs). This includes a shift of functions of planning, monitoring and management of basic and secondary schools under the jurisdiction of LGs. As a result, local governments now have the mandate and budget to develop their own education plans and budgets alongside (and aligned to) the overall national goals of the SESP. Please see the overview of education-related functions across the three tiers of government attached as annex 1.

The decentralized approach necessitates a long-term strategic education sector plan to convene the disparate actors across Nepal’s education sector under a collectively shared vision and roadmap. For this, the 10-year SESP was developed, informed by a comprehensive education sector analysis. To implement the SESP in the federal context, a framework is required under which the federal-, provincial- and local governments can adequately execute their exclusive- and concurrent powers.

Strengthening institutional capacity and coordination is a priority under the SESP, with strategies and targets defined on enabling LGs to undertake key functions of education services. Specifically, the SESP states the objectives of:

• enhance good governance in education by clearly articulating the roles and responsibilities of federal, provincial and local governments,
• institutionalizing mechanisms that strengthen inter-relationships, coordination and collaboration between the three levels of government and by developing systems that make officials working at different levels accountable for performance and answerable towards results,
• building capacity of human resources and institutions under the institutional structures and mechanisms of the Nepal school education sector, including personnel at the local level, and
• strengthening of school management to make it accountable for results.

In addition, the toolkits are to provide local Governments tools to internalize and undertake gender transformative programming and budgeting within their education plans and budgets, as well as ensure that climate change mitigation and adaptation are mainstreamed in the plans.

There have been several guidelines and resources developed by the Government to facilitate and support LGs in undertaking their new roles and responsibilities. These include the National Planning Commission (NPC) guidelines and the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration (MOFAGA) local level planning guidelines to guide the local levels in the formulation of development plans and respective sector plans. In addition to this, the CEHRD produces the Annual Strategic Implementation Plan (ASIP), the Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWPB) and the program Implementation Manual (PIM) to support LGs in the school education sector planning and budgeting processes. An overview of the frameworks and timelines confirmed for the local level planning process has been attached as annex 2 and the MoFAGA guidelines for local level planning have been attached as annex 3.

In addition to this, there are lessons learned and good practices from the provincial- and local governments that developed their local education plans alongside the SESP and the support for local governments to develop their equity strategy implementation plans (ESIPs) and local level education plans under UNICEF’s partnership with World Education. The initial draft outline of local level comprehensive education sector plans has been attached as annex 4.

As part of the effort to provide need-based support to LGs on contextualizing the SESP in the initial years of its implementation, a guideline is to be developed for the formulation of GESI- responsive and disaster and climate-resilient local government periodic education plan. This guideline is to be part of an SESP calibration toolkit that allows LGs to benchmark the annual targets in the SESP Program Result Framework, using an evidence-based methodology to contextualize and cost the targets and strategies against the projected available resources.

Following the development and approval of the SESP in FY 2022-23, the Government will be supported in undertaking workshops at national-, provincial- and local level for the dissemination of the toolkit. During these workshops, an intake will be facilitated with local governments where they can have their existing education plans and budgets reviewed by independent experts to understand where there is further room for elaboration and/or improvement in terms of alignment with the SESP, reflecting local needs and priorities and reflecting cross-sectoral priorities including ways to ensure their plan is gender responsive/transformative and climate-resilient. This exercise is to be completed in a phased approach, aiming for all 753 local governments to have undertaken this by the end of fiscal year 2025/26, following support for the implementation, review and updating of the local government education plans and budgets will be provided through the technical assistance mobilized under the UNICEF-EU co-financing agreement to strengthen

institutional capacity across all levels of Government to implement the SESP. The workshops and dissemination of the toolkits are not included in the scope of work under this ToR.

The SESP calibration toolkit is envisioned to become a common tool that the Government and development partners, including CSO networks use when engaging with local governments on their education sector plan and budget development/updating.

The toolkit will also need to include guidance on the implementation of the ‘Child Friendly System Framework’ in a selected number of local governments where UNICEF will combine the strengthening of institutional capacity on key functions to implement the SESP with programmatic support aligned with the SESP priorities and the UNICEF 2023-27 Country Program Action Plan (CPAP) education components. The description of the Child Friendly System Framework has been attached as annex 6.

The intended audience/users of the SESP calibration toolkit are officers responsible for planning and decision makers at local level, as well as non-state actors that use the toolkit while engaging with local governments on system strengthening, with specific user guides being developed for them.

How can you make a difference?

To support the development of common toolkits for Local Governments (LGs) to develop comprehensive local government ESPs aligned to the national SESP, including benchmarking and financial simulation to support evidence-based planning and budgeting. The toolkits need to include adequate tools to support LGs integrating the following themes in their education plans and budgets:

• Gender responsive, social- and disability inclusive
• Climate Change Education, Comprehensive School Safety and Resilience
• Quality Early Childhood Education and Development
• Foundational learning outcomes and learning recovery
• Youth engagement and non-formal education

The calibration toolkit will be developed under the leadership of the Government and is envisioned to serve as a common tool for government and partners to use and promote when supporting local level planning and budgeting to establish a coherent approach and minimum standards across all local governments, while allowing the processes to be aligned to the local context, priorities and needs.

In addition to the calibration toolkit, which will cater to local governments, here will also be modules developed to implement the so-called common package in a number of local governments that are targeted for additional programmatic support that will extent to the classroom/ household level. The description of this common package has been attached for reference as annex 6

Scope of Work

An international and national expert will be mobilized in response to the addressed scope of work and are expected to closely collaborate on the deliverables. The international expert will be the strategic lead of the overall development of the design of the toolkit and will be responsible for the timely delivery of the toolkit, ensuring it is informed by regional- and global good practices and aligned with the local context in the country. The national expert will be expected to undertake the majority of the consultations with local actors and responsible officers and entities to ensure that the toolkit takes stock of the diverse needs, opportunities and constraints and is fully aligned with the country’s planning and budgeting systems developed and rolled out through the various ministries. Given the expected time required for local level coordination and consultations and the logistical arrangements required for this, the national expert is provided with 10 additional days

The experts will, led by the international expert, identify a division of labour to undertake the following activities:

• Mapping regulations and guidance on local level planning and budgeting processes
• Mapping tools developed by non-state actors to support local government key functions on analysis, planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation
• Undertaking consultation with Government leadership, responsible officers, local government representatives and members of the Local Education Development Partner Group
• Identification of the Disbursement Linked Indicators that need to be reflected in the local education plans and budgets
• Stocktaking of targets and requirements for LG plans and budgets as per the national SESP Program Result Framework, joint Disbursement Linked Indicator Framework and the action SESP Program Action Plan.
• Other technical assistance mobilized to strengthen local level planning by Joint Financing Partners, ensuring compatibility, such as the technical assistance mobilized to strengthen budgeting and reporting processes at local level
• Development of a module-based toolkit, which includes guidance on using EMIS and other data for planning and budgeting, financial simulation modelling, benchmarking tools, templates that can be adapted to remain relevant in the diverse context LGs are set to use them in, and user guides tailored to the specific user groups.

The SESP Calibration toolkit will include (but not be limited to):

• Tools for assessing institutional capacity to implement SESP
• Benchmarking tool to contextualize SESP targets, taking institutional capacity, performance, projected resources into account
• A financial simulation tool that can be customized to project cost of envisioned targets
• Guidance on how to map and analysis available data and unpack the equity index score to analysis key needs and priorities
• Templates for long term plans, annual plans, budgets, etc, as required by Government and that adapted to type of local government
• Tools to monitor and report implementation

In addition, the modules on the CFS+ will include:

• Tools and guidance developed under the UNICEF education outputs
• Guidance on school assessment against CFS standards
• Scales to identify targets against CFS baseline

Following the desk review of existing frameworks, tools and resources, the experts will consult with relevant government agencies (including the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), Centre for Education and Human Resource development (CEHRD) and other central level line agencies, Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO), National/Provincial Planning Commissions, the National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission (NNRFC), Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration (MoFAGA). Additionally, the experts will consult key agencies, programs and individuals that are engaged in good governance and strengthening of decentralized institutional capacity as identified by the UNICEF Nepal Country Office, including the Provincial and Local Governance Support Program (PLGSP) and technical assistance mobilized by Joint Financial Partners (JFPs) to the SESP.

In addition to the development of the Common SESP Calibration toolkit, the experts will also support the development of components to this toolkit that UNICEF intends to use in local governments where it will provide programmatic support in addition to the institutional capacity strengthening, which includes supporting a review and update of the 2011 Child Friendly School Framework.

TASK

• Stocktaking of targets and requirements for LG plans and budgets as per the SESP Program Result Framework, joint Disbursement Linked Indicator Framework and the action SESP Program Action Plan
• Recommended updates based on the review of the 2011 Child Friendly School Framework
• Undertaking consultation with Government leadership, responsible officers, local government representatives and members of the Local Education Development Partner Group
• Mapping of technical assistance mobilized to strengthen local level planning by Joint Financing Partners, ensuring compatibility.
• Development of a module-based toolkit, including GESI and Climate Smart Education System components, which includes guidance on using EMIS and other data for planning and budgeting, financial simulation model, benchmarking tools, templates that can be adapted to remain relevant in the diverse context LGs are set to use them in.
• Presentation of toolkit to the Government and Development Partners

First Deliverable

• SESP toolkit outline

Second Deliverable

• SESP toolkit report

Third Deliverable

• SESP calibration toolkit

Fourth Deliverable

• SESP calibration presentation and briefing note (in English)

Duration: The duration of the assignment is 30 working days for the international consultant and 40 working days for the national consultant with tentative start date of 01 November 2023

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Minimum Qualifications and Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required for International Consultant

• Masters’ degree in education management and/or planning, or experience in a related area.
• A minimum of eight years of demonstrated capacity and experience in supporting planning processes in Lower (Middle) Income Countries that have a decentralized governance structure
• Good understanding of federal structures and local governance
• Experience and expertise in developing local level education sector plans and budgets
• Experience in gender transformative planning and budgeting
• Good written and oral communication skills and openness and willingness to interact with different stakeholders
• Extensive knowledge of the national education plans and institutional setup of education sectors
• Experience working with government ministries including the Ministry of Education in developing countries

Minimum Qualifications and Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required for National Consultant

• Masters’ degree in education management and/or planning, or experience in a related area.
• A minimum of five years of demonstrated capacity and experience in the context of Nepal education sector
• Good understanding of the Nepal federal structure and local governance
• Good understanding of the Nepal education sector plans
• Good written and oral communication skills and openness and willingness to interact with different stakeholders
• Extensive knowledge of the national education plans and institutional setup of education sectors
• Experience in gender transformative planning and budgeting
• Experience working with government ministries including the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and its central level agencies, provincial ministries of social development and/or local governments
• Able and willing to conduct field travel for local consultations

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure the health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract.

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Potential interview questions

Added 2 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: unicef.org