National consultancy- Leave No Child Out (LNCO) – Building Inclusive, Equitable and Quality Education in Georgia Programme Evaluation

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, education

UNICEF is looking for a national consultant to support an international consultant in conducting an evaluation of the tripartite partnership Programme Leave No Child Out - Building Inclusive, Equitable and Quality Education in Georgia, supported by the Government of Norway and implemented during the period of 1 October 2020 through 31 September 2023. The partnership supports the Government of Georgia’s efforts in promoting, fostering, and monitoring quality and inclusiveness of education. The trilateral cooperation is based on the longstanding collaboration between the parties focusing on the enhancement of human and institutional capacities in the education field, improvement of learning environments and accessibility of children and teachers to diverse opportunities for improved motivation, performance, teaching and learning.

The Partnership Programme identified three major outcomes to pursue:

1. A robust overarching and inclusive education support system is progressively in place and functioning, to meet national demands and international standards on inclusive education for children with disabilities (CWD) including from ethnic minorities.
2. Effective teacher education programmes (pre- and in- service) and supportive (teaching and learning resources) systems that meet international standards and practices are functioning to ensure that teaching workforce and management adhere to/abide by inclusive and quality education.
3. Stigma and harmful social norms against children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities reduced to improve access and participation of children into formal and non-formal educational services.

The evaluation will measure changes as a result of the Programme implementation and provide evidence between the interventions and the outcomes. In addition, the evaluation will define what has worked and what has not in the Programme and what would be the best way forward.

The evaluation objectives of the Leave No Child Out Programme are as follows:

• Provide an assessment to what extent the Programme approaches, and interventions were effective in meeting the needs of the children with SEN and CWD including from ethnic minorities (achieving the outcomes) and girls. This includes identifying what has not been achieved through initiated activities.
• Assess the impact, relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of the Programme from its inception to its almost completion, with focus on its ability to respond to the needs of the rights holders: children between 3 – 18 years of age, with a specific focus on CWD ethnic minorities and girls, national minorities, and marginalised children.
• Assess how well the main transformative results were accomplished during the Programme implementation in terms of: (i) coordination and collaboration to meet national demands and international standards on inclusive education for children with disabilities (CWD) including from ethnic minorities; (ii) quality and delivery of the proposed activities within the Programme; (iii) consultation and participation with the stakeholders to promote the participatory approaches; and (iv) the internal M&E systems.
• Examine to what extent the activities influenced the improvement of the situation of children with SEN including ethnic minorities and girls identified in the Programme document.
• Document and provide recommendations regarding the lessons learned, best practices and innovations that can be applied to other programs.

Scope of work:

UNICEF seeks to engage a local consultant to support an international consultant to carry out an external evaluation of the Leave No Child Out - Building Inclusive, Equitable and Quality Education in Georgia Programme. The local consultant will be expected to support data collection, translation (if needed) and provision of insights into the local context.

Estimated Start Date: on/or about 9 August 2023

Estimated End Date: on/or about 30 September 2023

Deadlines for Key Deliverables****:

• Inception report – 17 August 2023.
• Data collection and draft evaluation report – 20 September 2023.
• Final evaluation report, evaluation brief and presentation of findings – 30 September 2023.
• Project report, describing and documenting the process of the evaluation – 30 September 2023.

Evaluation Management:

UNICEF Georgia will be responsible for management issues and will liaise between the evaluation consultant and stakeholders to facilitate data collection as necessary.

Payment:

The consultancy fee will be negotiated between the applying individuals and UNICEF Georgia. Payment will be carried out in several instalments as agreed between the selected individual and UNICEF, after satisfactory implementation of services.

To verify the quality, full research protocol, the draft and the final reports will go through UNICEF’s external quality review mechanism which assigns ratings. The protocols and the reports must receive at least Satisfactory rating to be considered as duly delivered.

UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if deliverables are incomplete or not submitted at all, or for failure to meet deadlines.

The payment of fees will be based on the submission of deliverables, as follows:

Upon approval of the Inception Report - 30%.

Upon submission of a draft final evaluation report of satisfactory quality - 30%.

Upon approval of the final evaluation report and the PowerPoint presentation of the evaluation results - 40%.

Duration: 9 August 2023- 30 September 2023 (30 working days).

Location: Home based

Travel: One-time in-country travel is required

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks/Milestone:

Deliverables/Outputs:

Support data collection and provide translation during evaluation:

- Provide insights into the local context and Georgian education system.

- Support translation and provide inputs on the local context during the development of data collection instruments, including FGD protocol questions, KII protocol questions, survey questionnaires, checklists, and discussion guides.

- Support identification of sources of information and organize relevant meetings.

- Participate in the FGDs and KIIs and take notes during the meetings.

- Provide translation/interpretation services for international consultant as needed.

- Providing inputs about the local context into the inception report and evaluation report.

- Assist in preparation of presentation of evaluation findings.

- Fulfill other duties and responsibilities related to the evaluation as requested by international consultant.

• Quality support provided to international consultant(s) throughout the period of data collection and processing.

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

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

• University degree (Bachelor’s degree) in statistics, sociology, economics, international development, public policy, public administration, or related field.
• At least 2 years of experience in supporting evaluations/assessments/research.
• Experience in supporting evaluations of education programs will be an asset.
• Proven record in collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data.
• Experience in conducting efficiency analysis.
• Excellent spoken and written skills in Georgian and English.
• The consultant must be independent from the evaluation object and evaluated activities and have no stake in the outcome of the evaluation.

Required documents to be summited:

• CV
• Cover letter
• A financial proposal indicating all-inclusive (lump sum) fee for the service and travel cost.

Deadline- August 10, 6 PM Georgian time

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

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.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.