International Consultancy title: Project manager and specialist in Teacher Professional Development (3 months)

Contract

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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, Learning

This is a short-term consultancy to support UNICEF Jordan Office to deliver on national blended teacher professional development programmes in close collaboration with international consultancy company and the Department of Education Training Centre (ETC) at the Ministry of Education.

UNICEF is seeking an expert who can support the development of teacher professional development courses across three areas; National Teacher Professional Standards; Learning Bridges; and the Teachers for the Futures course. The role of the consultancy will be to support project management of the design and implementation, liaising between UNICEF and the Ministry of Education, as well as quality assurance of materials, including sourcing images and QA of videos.

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the education of all children and has affected their learning, wellbeing, and many other aspects of their lives. It has also affected teachers and their performance during this unique and unprecedented situation. The teachers are expected to harmonize their teaching methodologies and approaches to meet the emerging needs that have arisen due to the pandemic. The demand for distance learning has put pressure on teachers to adjust the pedagogy to meet the increasing demand for the use of technology and various platforms offered by national governments and partners. At the same time, there have been limited opportunities to support teachers’ professional growth as a precondition of quality education. UNICEF is supporting the MOE to address these challenges through the following three courses.

How can you make a difference?

Deliverable 1:Quality Assurance of National Professional Teacher Standards

The national professional teacher standards will be used as the basis for the professional development of educators to enhance their skills in real and virtual school environment and in the school community which reflect in improving the educational learning outcomes.

The standards also support updating training and professional development programs to address the challenges facing the educational system due to developments and emergency conditions such as blended learning, synchronous and asynchronous distance learning, enabling the virtual educational environment. The MOE is now in a good position to capitalize on these rapid developments in the teaching profession, with the establishment of more creative approaches to teaching and learning and by strengthening the teacher profession through high quality professional development. This necessitated the development of a platform for teachers by the Ministry of Education that helps the profession to reform and become more autonomous and resilient.

Tasks for consultant;

• The consultant will quality assure all deliverables to ensure that the final draft product to be shared with the Ministry of Education is of good quality, appropriate to the local context and successfully embeds standards. EDT, an international consultancy firm, have been contracted by UNICEF to develop the course content, working remotely, and in partnership with the Ministry of Education. A team of 4-6 national subject consultants, already hired by UNICEF, will ensure that the content is appropriate to the local context and reflects the national curriculum – based on their expertise as Jordanian Subject experts across English, Arabic, Maths and Science. As an example, the consultant will quality assure the training videos that are produced as part of the course, accompany the local consultants to ensure the filming of model lessons in schools is of good quality and models the appropriate standard, and will check the quality assure the standard of materials produced at MOE.
• The consultant will also project management the development of the national professional standards training course, ensuring the that the EDT contract remains on time and budget, with products of a good standard. To achieve this, the consultant will regularly liaise with the EDT project manager. This will also be dependent on ensuring timely engagement from the Ministry of Education on draft deliverables, as well as inputs from national subject consultants.
• The consultant, based in Jordan, will also lead the technical dialogue with the Ministry of Education, on behalf of UNICEF, to ensure that the courses are meeting the expectations of the Education and Training Department. As an expert on national subject standards, the consultant will technically guide this dialogue to ensure that the courses successfully model how the new professional teacher standards can be embedded in training courses, to support professional development.
• The consultant will also provide in person facilitation support to the implementation of the training of trainers course, with the support of one or more national subject consultants. This will be undertaken in a blended modality, with EDT delivering online, but with groups of supervisors attending in person so that they can actively engage and discuss. Up to sixty Supervisors and School Principals will be trained to act as trainers in their Districts to support the role out of the training.

The consultant will report to the Education Specialist in the Education Section who will have overall accountability of deliverables. A UNV will be provided to support translation and logistics.

Deliverable 2: Quality Assurance of Learning Bridges: teacher professional development training course

A four-hour training video on Learning Bridges for educators was prepared ahead of the 2020/21 academic year. This was undertaken by 30,000 teachers and available on the Edraak Platform. The training course set out the main principles of blended learning, as well as advice on how to implement the Learning Bridges program in support of children studying by distance for part of the school week. In actuality, the schools in Jordan were fully closed for the majority of the school year and the program was implemented remotely without face to face support of teachers.

The training course now needs updating to reflect the expected modality for implementing Learning Bridges in the 2021/22 school year. It is hoped that most schools will be fully face to face, with up to a quarter of schools attending on rotation. Some grades or schools may close temporarily should COVID cases be reported within the school.

Tasks for consultant:

The consultant will set the timelines and tasks for different partners, project manage and quality assure the revision of the Learning Bridges training course for educators, as well as the development of the Learning Bridges materials for Grade 10. To achieve this, the consultant will;

• quality assure all deliverables to ensure that the final draft product to be shared with the Ministry of Education is of good quality, appropriate to the local context and successfully embeds standards. EDT, an international consultancy firm, have been contracted by UNICEF to develop the course content, working remotely, and in partnership with the Ministry of Education. A team of 4-6 national subject consultants, already hired by UNICEF, will ensure that the content is appropriate to the local context and reflects the national curriculum – based on their expertise as Jordanian Subject experts across English, Arabic, maths and Science. As an example, the consultant will quality assure the training videos that are produced as part of the course, accompany the local consultants to ensure any filming of model lessons in schools is of good quality and models the appropriate standard, and will check the quality assure the standard of materials produced at MOE.

The consultant will report to the Education Specialist in the Education Section who will have overall accountability of deliverables. A UNV will be provided to support translation and logistics.

Deliverable 3: Teacher for Futures: teacher professional development course

The Teacher Futures course starts with developing an understanding of good practice based on the recent international research of learning, teaching, and assessment in the classroom. It looks at how these practices need to be adapted when working with students in blended or remote circumstances.

This teacher professional development course framework is organized around three key units:

Unit 1: Effective face-to-face teaching practices;

Unit 2: Effective remote teaching practices; and,

Unit 3: Effective blended teaching.

The units are broken down into modules that focus on aspects of effective teaching practices, be it face-to-face, remotely, or through a blended/hybrid approach. All materials are based on research evidence on effective teaching practices.

A consultancy firm has been hired by the Regional Office to transform the existing teacher professional development framework into a teacher development resource package that could be part of organized teacher development programs (e.g., by ministries of education, different institutions, including NGOs) or used by individual teachers for their self-learning. The product will be a full modular teacher development course package that can be printed out or exported as PDFs for participants and will include live links to online documents where possible. There will also be a final version of the course will include full story-boarding under each slide for digitization.

The expected deliverables that will be delivered by the RO through the consulting company are specified below:

• The teacher professional development package
• ToT package developed and selected unites of the ToT package piloted in Jordan
• A detailed story board with a range of options for different modalities of course delivery which includes guidance for organizational contextualization
• Participants’ manual for the use of the teacher professional development package

Tasks for consultant:

UNICEF JCO is seeking an individual consultant to provide technical support to the MENA Regional Office in the development of the above deliverables for the Jordan context. Specifically, the consultant will liaise with MOE and the UNICEF subject specialists to provide inputs to the international consultancy firm on the following;

• Provide country relevant suggestions for videos, photographs, illustrations, etc.) including assessment tools to measure teachers progress (level of effort),specifically:
• Provide feedback to EDT on their recommended pathways through the lessons, i.e. what is optional, what is a pre-requisite to the next lesson etc. and modality (i.e. face-to-face, synchronous, self-study)
• Review scripts provided by EDT for short videos (approx. 20) and photographs/images (approx. 80) consolidating comments from UNICEF subject specialists and MOE to provide feedback for EDT
• Quality assure the training videos produced by EDT providing written and verbal feedback

• Develop quizzes, assessments, and/or evaluation forms and certificate template(s).

• Provide written feedback on the content and modality of the ToT package for master trainers

• Advise on the in-country piloting of selected units to inform the finalization of the full package teacher professional development package in the Jordan context
• Provide feedback on the country guidance for contextualization of the teacher professional development package for country-level use (off-line or online)
• Provide feedback on the zero and first draft of participants’ manual

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

Education: An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Education.

Experience:

• A minimum of 8 years professional experience as a teacher educator
• Demonstrated experience of embedding national teacher standards in professional development courses
• Relevant experience working in Jordan is considered as an asset
• Relevant experience working for or in a UN system agency is considered as an asset

Language: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

EVALUATION PROCESS:

ualified candidates are requested to submit:

1. Cover letter/application.
2. Financial quote as lump sum for professional fees, and lump sum for travel/administrative/subsistence, as the consultant, is required to travel to Jordan.
3. CV.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

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.

Child Safeguarding remarks

This position is not considered an elevated risk role. However, UNICEF reserves the right to conduct further vetting/ assessment within the scope of child safeguarding as appropriate.