National Consultant (Multilingual Education Research); Dhaka; Re-advertisement

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.

Background:

Significant gains in education development have been achieved in Bangladesh over the last few decades. These gains however have not been homogenously distributed across the country and among population groups, as confirmed by smaller area estimates against national averages. One such marginalized population group is ethnic minority children, who suffer from intersectionality of disadvantages of geographical isolation, profound poverty, ethnicity and language barriers.

The multiplicity of languages in both classrooms and in community life creates an additional layer of challenge for ethnic minority children to fully participate in the classroom instruction through teacher-student and student-student communications. The concept formation in different subject areas (including literacy, numeracy, scientific and citizenship skills) as per the school curriculum and the home-to-school transition are also a big challenge as the languages used in the informal setting of home and formal setting of schools are different for these children. Also, in many cases, the formal school curricula are not fully representative of their cultural and linguistic identity, having impact on their self-image, confidence and self-esteem which are all vital elements for being successful in academics and in other fronts of life.

Recognizing the importance of Mother Tongue Based Multi-Lingual Education (MTB-MLE) in fostering learning and positive self-image, as well as from constitutional obligations, the government took initiative to introduce MLE in the government primary schools with an aim to ease home-to-school transition and pedagogic integration of the ethnic minority children in classrooms. A technical committee was formed by the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MoPME) to design and develop a strategy for introducing MLE. A ‘Bridging Plan’ was developed and approved to guide the process of MLE introduction. In line with this, textbooks in Bangla and Mathematics for grades pre-primary, 1, 2 and 3 have been developed in five major ethnic languages (Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Sadri, Garo), and are introduced in a phased manner from 2016.

One of the indicators to assess the achievement of the PEDP4 Result Area 1.2 “Textbooks and Teaching-Learning Materials (TLM)” is “Effective implementation of MLE language textbooks supports a seamless transition to Bangla medium in grade 4” [measured by the “Percentage of schools which received all new textbooks and TLM (teachers' edition, teachers' guide, SRMs, PPE TLM Packages and MLE packages) as per distribution and replenishment plan by January 31”; and “Number of teachers trained in: SCNBT (every quarter); Subject-based training; SRMs and language pedagogy training including MLE; Induction training; Curriculum dissemination training; HT Leadership training; ICT training” [measured as the number of teachers trained in SCNBT, Subject-based training, SRMs and language pedagogy training, Induction training, Curriculum dissemination training, HT Leadership training and ICT training].

However, the introduction of MLE by the government has not been supported by a proper implementation plan considering the ground reality. Systematic script training and pedagogic training were not organized to support teachers to read/write the 5 languages and understand the basic principles, underlying philosophy and instructional aims and methods of MLE. There has not been any effort to deploy teachers with matching ethnicity profiles. All these factors are likely to contribute to deepen the pre-existing educational disadvantages faced by the ethnic minority children.

There has been limited research on the MLE intervention introduced to government primary schools, leading to a paucity of necessary data/evidence/information to help shape future policy and programmatic interventions to support improving the learning achievement rates of the ethnic minority children and fostering their educational and sociocultural integration process. As the government is aiming to expand the language coverage by developing MLE materials for more ethnic languages, it is critical to take stock of the situation of schools and the learning status of the currently-reached ethnic minority children to examine to what extent the current MLE intervention has been beneficial. It is also important to generate evidence on what worked well, what did not, and how schools, children and their communities responded to the MLE introduction. The research can also inform the adoption of sound instructional strategies and actions to be taken to bolster support to the MLE design and implementation through evidence generation.

Purpose of Activity/Research:

Within this backdrop, a Consultant is expected to be on board to support the overall aim of this research: to understand the implementation status of MLE and design a comprehensive approach to support future scale-up of MLE.

Specific Research Objectives:

The following specific objectives of the research will be completed through desk review, interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), and field visits including classroom observation (where possible):

1. To understand institutional roles (at both national and subnational levels), capacity gaps, policies, guiding frameworks, strategic plans and operational realities on how MLE has been conceived, planned and rolled out at school level;
2. To review the Bridging Plan’s foundation in sound research, national and international best practices of MLE, and the ground realities of schools that implement policy guidance;
3. To review the considered or actualized operationalization of the MLE Bridging Plan (considering the approaches to teaching MLE, plans for teacher training, school readiness, development and distribution of books);
4. To understand how the textbooks have been developed (translation, adaptation, etc.), in particularly looking at their alignment with the Bridging Plan;
5. To examine how the MLE textbooks are taught and what operational challenges are faced by teachers on a day-to-day basis in relation to contact hours, teacher availability with matching ethnicity and respective language literacy capacity to teach, and how the language competencies are assessed, achieved and valued;
6. To assess the data and status of school-level mapping of ethnicity profiles of teachers and students, e.g. how many schools is MLE active in (disaggregated by district), how many students are benefiting or targeted/reached (per grade, with ethnicity and gender breakdown if possible), how many teachers (disaggregated by ethnicity); and do some basic performance assessment of ethnic minority upazilas/districts against national norms (e.g., gender ratio, repetition/dropout rates etc.)
7. To know if there is a lack of ethnic minority teachers. If yes, identify the main challenges on recruiting ethnic minority teachers and make recommendations on how to overcome this problem;
8. To learn the views/experiences of children receiving MLE in regard to their satisfaction and learning achievement, including any specific advances or challenges based on sex, grade, ethnicity, disability, or geographic location.
9. To know what monitoring mechanisms are in place for checking quality of MLE intervention and how feedback from field have been considered to ensure quality;
10. To recommend effective strategies for developing quality curriculum, materials, instructional methods, assessment, teacher education/training strategy, teacher recruitment and deployment, EMIS data for textbook distribution and teacher deployment, language-inclusive COVID-19 response etc. in relation to MLE design and implementation.

Scope of the Research:

The scope of the desk review is all preparation, planning, and implementation documentation related to MLE in the country. For primary data collection, all primary schools covering PPE and grades 1-3 which ever implemented MLE are included in the scope, beginning in 2016 through the 2020 school closures. All non-desk review methods will be COVID-19-sensitive and will employ the necessary restrictions and precautions.

Methodology:

The methodology for research will be mixed methods, with primarily a qualitative focus with some quantitative sampling and analysis. The consultant will specifically conduct the following tasks:

Desk review:

• Relevant literature including national policies, sector plans and strategic documents;
• Textbooks, teaching-learning materials, and all other relevant MLE materials
• MLE school data, student achievement records, etc. (representative of total MLE coverage geographically, linguistically, and by grade)

Key informant interviews/consultations:

• NCTB, DPE, NAPE, Hill District Councils, CHTDB and non-government entities such as MLE Forum, CAMPE, UNESCO, Save the Children, BRAC etc.;
• Head teachers, School Management Committees, AUEOs and local administration in where MLE was implemented

Focus group discussions:

• Teachers who have implemented MLE in their classrooms
• Children (aged 8 years and above) who previously received MLE in their classroom
• Parents and community members

Field visits to schools (only after re-opening occurs)

• Observation of teachers, MLE administration, and children receiving MLE

Ethical and other considerations:

To ensure the highest ethical standards, the consultant will abide by the following:

• UNICEF Procedure for Ethical Standards in Research, Evaluation, Data Collection and Analysis
• UNICEF Strategic Guidance Note on Institutionalizing Ethical Practice for UNICEF Research
• UNEG Ethical Guidelines for UN Evaluations

The consultant is expected to explain ethical considerations for the assessment, specifically spelling out how these above guidelines will be followed/met. Any specific ethical considerations or strategies necessary to prevent or avoid COVID-19 infection and spread should be addressed and detailed in the Inception report. All data collected through this assignment, reports and dissemination materials are the intellectual properties of UNICEF and shall not be used for other purposes.

Additionally, the study will be human rights-based (including child rights) and gender sensitive. All applicable findings will be analyzed and presented by sex, age, and ability level. The consultant is advised to refer to the UNEG Guidance on Integrating Human Rights and Gender Equality in Evaluation, which is applicable to research like this one.

Deliverables/Outputs:

Deliverable

Payment and completion timeframe

1. Inception report detailing:

2. Proposed research methodology and approach;

3. Identification of key national and international literature and programmatic documents;
4. Identification of key stakeholders for data collection;
5. Draft data collection tools and protocols;
6. Ethical considerations and risk mitigation strategies;

7. Detailed work plan.

8. Inception Report (including draft data collection tools and data analysis plan)

Deliverable 1 due by Week 2. Pay upon acceptance of deliverable

2. Interim report detailing:

3. Review of relevant literature including national policies, sector plans and strategic documents to understand the guidance for planning and implementing MLE;

4. Review textbooks and other teaching-learning materials; discuss with NCTB on the approach taken to understand how the materials have been developed (translation, adaptation etc.); whether the books are developed following the Bridging Plan;
5. Data collection tools draft and finalization;

6. Conduction of data collection and analysis, including stakeholder consultations to understand institutional roles, capacity gaps and operational realities on how MLE has been conceived, planned and rolled out at school level;

7. Final data collection tools

8. Raw data on various aspects of MLE design and implementation
9. Final data analysis plan

Deliverables 2, 3 and 4, due by Week 7. Pay upon acceptance of deliverable

3. Draft research report detailing preliminary findings on:

4. MLE technical design (whether NCTB has the technical capacity and experience of transforming the Bridging Plan into classroom instruction; whether the Bridging Plan is technically sound, whether translation/adaptation of selected book can be treated as MLE etc.),

5. Implementation (related to training roll out plan, class routine and contact hour, teacher recruitment and deployment etc.)

6. Management and coordination (relating to follow up monitoring, supervision and research; stakeholder consultation and adjustment plan, sound effectiveness research to inform future expansion etc.);

7. Draft analysis of data on MLE design and Implementation

Deliverable 5 and 6 due Week 10. Pay upon acceptance of deliverable

4. Study findings sharing workshop with key stakeholders

5. Sharing workshop report and PPT

6. Final Report with detailed analysis of the MLE situation including recommendations for curriculum, materials (including Orthography, writing system and relevant theme of each languages to be considered while making recommendations for Curriculum), pedagogy, assessment, teacher training and education, teacher recruitment and deployment, MIS improvement, management and coordination.

7. Final Report on MLE design and implementation with key findings and recommendations

8. All raw and analysed qualitative and quantitative data

Deliverable 7 and 8 due on Week 12. Pay upon acceptance of deliverable

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

Qualifications/Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

• Advanced university degree in Education or any other social science subject relevant to education.
• Solid technical understanding of the Multi-Lingual Education (MLE) approach;
• Good understanding of primary education system in Bangladesh, particularly of curriculum, textbooks, pedagogical practices in government primary schools, teacher training and role of related institutions such as, NCTB, NAPE, DPE, MoPME, schools, and civil society organizations;
• At least 5 years of experience of conducting qualitative and quantitative research, at least 2 years of which was with children;
• At least 5 years of experience in program design and implementation in the education sector, preferably related to MLE;
• Good reporting capacity in English and technical expertise in ICT;
• Knowledge of any of the ethnic language is an asset;
• Ability to work on own with minimal supervision.

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:

“This is a re-advertisement in order to expand the candidate pool. Previous applicants need not reapply as their original application will be duly considered.”

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.