Local Consultancy - Junior Expert for the Analysis of Armenia’s National Learning Assessment System

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Application deadline 2 years ago: Wednesday 28 Apr 2021 at 19:55 UTC

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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.

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For every child, a champion

Individual Consultant is expected to perform this assignment remotely (home based) with possible field missions as required.

The aim of the assignment is to support improvement of Armenia’s national learning assessment system through comprehensive system analysis and policy recommendations that is systemic and would support implementing assessment for learning that is fair and equitable to all students. Under this assignment, the Junior Expert, working within a team of dedicated experts and guided by Team Leader, will be responsible for the assistance in analysis of Armenia’s national learning assessment system. This assessment envisages both secondary review of existing data, desk-research and primary data collection/analysis.

These activities will contribute to the SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) Target 4.6. which requires states to “ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.” At the global level, the agenda around the SDG 4 to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ by 2030, has reinforced a focus on learning assessment to gain data on learning that allow to establish and monitor education quality and learning progress.

The specific objectives under this assignment are:

  1. comprehensive literature review of advanced international research and practice, document review and key stakeholder consultations focusing on the following three dimensions: (i) the context of the national assessment system, (ii) the quality of assessment and (iii) coherence with the wider educational system;
  2. comparative analysis of the methodologies, produced data and required implementational resources of ATC-organized large-scale assessments (e.g. HAAS, BAAS), privately organized large-scale contest-assessments (e.g. Kangaroo) and international large-scale assessments (TIMSS, PISA) to identify which of these assessments would comprise be the efficient policy of generating evidence to analyze equitable student learning.

The analysis shall aim to provide evidence-based policy recommendations to improve Armenia’s national learning assessment system.

Key stakeholders of the assignment are the government line ministries, namely the Ministries of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure (MoTAI), MESCS, sub-national and local authorities, UNICEF, EU and dedicated CSOs.

The knowledge generated by the study should be used by UNICEF Armenia to inform and amplify its future activities and projects in the country and will also be used by other national stakeholders to further refine the quality, cohesiveness and timeliness of policies in the field of general education.

The aim of the assignment is to support improvement of Armenia’s national learning assessment system through comprehensive system analysis and policy recommendations. This activity will contribute to the SDG Target 4.6. which requires states to “ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy”.

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Scope of Work:

Context

National learning assessment systems are of particular importance in developing data-driven policies to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, achieve universal literacy and numeracy, and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for every child. Such systems are broadly defined as sets of policies, practices, structures, organizations and tools used to generate data and improve learning. Generally, four types of learning assessment are used by countries to guide learning, and are complementary in terms of objectives, scopes and limitations: (i) national large-scale assessments, examinations and tests (i.e. assessment of learning); (ii) international large-scale standardized assessments (i.e. assessment of learning); (iii) classroom assessment (i.e. assessment as/for learning), (iv) household surveys. Fairness and equity in assessment are important in recognizing and supporting the needs of increasingly diverse student populations.

Armenia’s national learning assessment system is primarily defined by the Law on Education (1999), the Law on General Education (2009) and various normative documents prepared by the Ministry of Education and the Government. In 2004 Armenia established its National Assessment and Testing Centre (transferred from the Ministry’s subordination to that of the Government Cabinet in 2009) mandated to develop and implement end-of-cycle graduation examinations (covering primary, secondary and high school graduations) and university admissions unified examinations; to provide methodological support to teachers in classroom assessment (the latter is summative at large); to implement national and international assessments; and to research and analyze assessment and examinations data. Starting in 2009 unified examinations have been used for all subjects. In 2010 Armenia conducted its first domestically-developed national large-scale assessment (sample-based survey adopting certain technical procedures from TIMSS) in the Armenian language, literature, and history (HAAS 2010), in physics and chemistry (BAAS 2011), in geography and biology (BAAS) and ICT (Information Communication Technology) in 2012, in foreign languages (OLAAS) in 2013. Since 2010 the National Assessment and Testing Centre has been regularly conducting the above-mentioned national large-scale assessments and external subject-specific evaluations to provide student achievement data comparable to in-school summative assessments. Since 2008, most Armenian students have annually participated in privately developed and administered (i.e. Ayb Educational Foundation) large-scale subject contests measuring their knowledge and skills: Kangaroo in mathematics (about 40,000 participants nationally), Russian Bear assessment in Russian language and Bee in the Armenian language. In 2003, 2007, 2008 (TIMSS Advanced), 2011 and 2015 Armenia has also participated in TIMSS (i.e., The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) by The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). In 2011 Armenia participated in the SABER (System Assessment and Benchmarking for Education Results) Student Assessment to benchmark its student assessment system, so far, the first and largest systematical examination of the national learning assessment system.

In 2021, the Government approved Armenia’s new National Curriculum, to implement the provisions of which in full, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport (MESCS) joint with the National Assessment and Testing Centre (NATC) and its newly established National Center for Educational Development and Innovation (NCEDI) intends to review the national learning assessment system, design new classroom assessment guidelines and train teachers

Responsibilities in the Team

The Junior Expert will be responsible for supporting the Team Leader and Senior Experts in desk research, reviewing desk data and key literature upon the Team Leader’s request and based on approved and pre-defined approach of the Team, supporting the instrument design and quality control of data collection, assisting in the primary qualitative data collection and analyzing secondary and primary data, as part of the technical working group composed of two Senior and two Junior Experts to be supervised by the Team Leader. The full set of reporting documents, produced by the Team, should adhere to UNICEF quality assurance standards and be developed and submitted in a timely manner.

The Consultant will be personally responsible for collection of primary data, its duly recording, transcription and support in analysis and initial preparation of summaries and inputs for the draft reports. S/he will also be tasked with supporting senior experts in preparing short memos and presentations for consultation meetings with key stakeholders.

International expertise will be available for guidance and orientation to globally available resources and methodologies. UNICEF will organize thematic orientation sessions and consultations. This assignment is within the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Education Sector Development Programme Grant-a joint UNICEF and the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports initiative to be implemented during 2021-2022.

Methodology

The study methodology shall follow a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection to obtain rich insights, address all the objectives of the assignment and to assure triangulation of data sources and data collection methods. The detailed methodology allowing for collection of all required information with detailed sampling strategy, study instruments and analytical approach should be developed by the Team at the end of the inception phase and submitted to UNICEF in a form of a Study Protocol for approval and quality assurance.

The analysis of Armenia’s national learning assessment shall follow a comprehensive two-stage approach.

Firstly, Armenia’s national learning assessment system shall be benchmarked and evaluated against quality criteria based on the ANLAS methodology developed by the Global Partnership for Education. This analysis shall include comprehensive literature review of advanced international research and practice, document review and key stakeholder consultations focusing on the following three dimensions: (i) the context of the national assessment system, (ii) the quality of assessment and (iii) coherence with the wider educational system. Each dimension shall be evaluated based on dimensional key areas and defined quality objectives.

    1. The first dimension refers to the broader context in which the national learning assessment system is located and the extent to which this context is supportive of the assessment system. The key areas include: (i) legislation or policy, (ii) institutional arrangements and governance structures, (iii) funding, (iv) leadership.
    2. The second dimension refers to the overarching key quality concepts for learning assessments: clarity and consistency of purpose, fitness for purpose, technical rigor, objectivity and independence, transparency and accountability and ethicality and fairness. The key areas are defined per type of the assessment: (i) large-scale assessments and examinations, (ii) classroom assessments.
    3. The third dimension relates to the extent to which the assessment system is consistent with important aspects of the broader education system and other aspects within the assessment system. The key areas include: (i) learning standards and curriculum, (ii) education system structure, (iii) education priorities, (iv) system-level data use.

Secondly, comparative analysis of the methodologies, produced data and required implementational resources of ATC-organized large-scale assessments (e.g. HAAS, BAAS), privately organized large-scale contest-assessments (e.g. Kangaroo) and international large-scale assessments (TIMSS, PISA) to identify which of these assessments would comprise be the efficient policy of generating evidence to analyze equitable student learning.

The final reports should incorporate the main learnings from all stages and provide concrete and accurate policy solutions for the MESCS to pursue. More information on the technical requirements for each report will be provided to successful candidates.

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

  • Advanced university degree in Education, Sociology, Economics, Public Policy, Social Policy or a related field.
  • At least 2 years of documented experience in education (preferably at least 1 year in either research or development of large-scale assessments) with solid knowledge of international research practice in the field of school leadership as well as of Armenia’s national school leadership system.
  • Extensive experience in research projects, studies, evaluations and household surveys, data analysis and report writing (both in Armenian and in English; links to published research and analytical documents relevant to the TOR to be provided).
  • Experience in FG assistance or moderation and qualitative interviewing, including interviewing children.
  • Proven ability of working in teams and expert groups as well as of working in international and multicultural environments, as well as with children and adolescents.
  • Fluency in written and spoken English.
  • Experience in working with UN agencies will be an asset.

For more details please refer to the attached Terms of Reference. ToR (B6_National Learning Assessment System (ANLAS)) - Junior Expert_VA.pdf

Terms of the application:

The deadline for the submission of applications is April 28. Applications should include:

  • Cover letter;
  • CV;
  • Financial Proposal;
  • Published research and analytical documents relevant to the TOR;
  • Examples of published work (paper, abstract, proceedings) in top international conferences and SCOPUS-indexed high-quality journals will be 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.

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