International consultant for Training of trainers for Teaching Assistants in primary schools

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UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund

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Application deadline 3 years ago: Wednesday 10 Mar 2021 at 22:55 UTC

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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

UNICEF works to support the right to education for every child. Whilst the country has seen significant progress in recent years, particularly in educational access, with high rates of primary enrolment for boys and girls and high completion rates, an inadequate focus on inclusive education and quality learning has left many children behind. Gaps in access to schooling are seen most clearly in children’s earliest years and in late adolescence. Children from rural or lower socio-economic backgrounds, and children with disabilities (CwD) are particularly at risk of being out-of-school or dropping out early. Persistent inequity and exclusion mean that these disadvantages disproportionately affect the country’s most vulnerable.

Despite attempts to introduce and ensure inclusive education, many children with disabilities are out of school and/or invisible in official statistics. Those who are in school, are often placed in ‘special schools’ or ‘special classes. Quality and equity in learning are critical concerns, with learning outcomes in the country persistently low.

Inclusion is at the core of UNICEF’s mission to realise the rights of all. Accordingly, UNICEF education programming covers all groups of children, paying particular attention to children at risk of being excluded from education. Quality education can only be achieved when every child, including the most marginalized and excluded, is in school with opportunities that provide her/him with the learning required for life.

In addition, some children with disabilities need disability-specific interventions- in the context of quality inclusive education, this means additional (Teaching Assistant) provision to enable their participation and learning.

UNICEF Country Office work together with the government counterparts and development partners towards accelerating efforts to expand access, improve quality and reduce inequities in participation and learning. The country is increasingly embarking on system reforms related to inclusive education, and teacher education has emerged as the most urgent priority. In response, UNICEF has supported teaching assistants’ trainings in 2019 and 2020, with the purpose of supporting future and current teaching assistants develop competencies for quality inclusive education. The process has included the development of trainers training tools, including learning modules and assistant manuals, designed to equip trainers with the crucial attitudes, knowledge and skills necessary for inclusive teaching.

UNICEF also supports the process of transformation of special schools into resource centres with the purpose to move children from special to mainstream schools, but also to re-organize specialist provision and support system in order to increase the capacity within mainstream schools to meet the needs of all learners. Working at the local and national level, resource centres are tasked with providing training and support for teachers and teaching assistants; developing and promoting teaching materials and inclusive pedagogies for working with children with disabilities; and helping schools to implement inclusion policies and practices.

How can you make a difference?

This consultancy is meant to support strengthening the capacities of staff from five Resource centres in the country to train teaching assistants to provide quality support to teachers in mainstream schools to work with children with special educational needs and disabilities. The consultant will act as trainer to the group of trainers selected by the Ministry of Education and Science in collaboration with the resource centers.

Under the supervision of the Education Specialist, in close collaboration with other UNICEF colleagues, and Ministry of Education and Science staff responsible for Inclusive education, the consultant will:

Objective 1 (eight working days): Design a Training of Trainers (ToT) programme – prepare an interactive training programme to build the competencies of representatives from the Resource centers to become competent trainers and instructors who will teach future educational assistants. The focus in the training programme should be on acquiring competencies for being a good trainer and facilitator combined with increasing the understanding and knowledge of the role of the educational assistant in an inclusive school setting.

Objective 2 (8-10 working days) Prepare a set of training materials –prepare presentations, handouts, select articles, and other useful materials for the participants to use to teach the training course to the educational assistants. The materials have to be structured in a training package/module that includes an agenda for each training day, presentation slides, additional reading and video materials, case studies and handouts.

Objective 3 (six working days): Deliver the training – the consultant will deliver the training to the selected group of 30 participants. Due to COVID-19 and travel restrictions, the training will be organized online through a platform that the consultant will select as most appropriate to ensure active engagement and participation by the participants.

Objective 4 (10 working days): Provide coaching sessions to the training teams – After the TOT, teams of trainers will be established, and the consultant will be required to provide individual coaching sessions to the training teams. The coaching sessions should provide an opportunity for the training teams to work with the consultant on their unique team’s training needs and address any challenges that the team has prior to the training, as well as to de-brief on the challenges after the training. Each team will receive two coaching sessions.

Objective 5 (four working days): Provide analysis with strategic consideration for schools to deploy teaching assistants - The consultant will provide the analysis, so the deployment of teaching assistants will be pre-organized

Objective 6 (two working days): Provide final report

Total 39 working days.

Consultant’s workplace and official travel

The consultant will work from home. The consultancy will not involve any travel, due to the pandemic with Covid – 19, and all trainings will be provided on-line

Reporting

After conducting the training , the consultant is required to submit written report on the training conducted, satisfaction of participants and recommendations on areas where the participants skills should be strengthened. Also, the consultant is required to submit short reports from coaching/mentoring support provided to each team.

Payment schedule

The payment of the consultancy fee will be upon the completion of the deliverables outlined above. Failure to deliver agreed content will result in reduction of the fee and/or cancellation of the contract.

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

  • Advanced university degree Masters in Pedagogy, Psychology, Special education or other relevant field.

  • In absence of an advance university degree, a bachelor's degree combined with work experience of over 15 years in the relevant field with will be acceptable.

  • Minimum 10 years of progressively responsible professional work experience designing and delivering programmes in the field inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream education
  • Has designed materials and approaches for inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream education.
  • Able to develop training modules and materials for Teaching Assistants, and able to deliver specialized training-of-trainers to the selected trainers.
  • Excellent communication, analytical and writing skills

  • Fluency in English (oral and written).

  • Knowledge of the country context is an asset.

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.

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are...

[insert competencies]

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

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:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

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.

Added 3 years ago - Updated 2 years ago - Source: unicef.org