National Education Consultant based out of FSM to support North Pacific (Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau)

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, a hero

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programmes, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

UNICEF North Pacific (NP) office is relatively a new office based in Pohnpei, FSM. It covers three countries in the Pacific region (FSM, RMI and Palau) and is expanding its scale of programme including Education. Thematic focus of the education programme is expected to include early childhood education (ECE), inclusive education and out-of-school children, school-based disaster risk reduction and/or other emerging priorities. In addition, the current situation around COVID-19 as a global pandemic has reinforced the need to intensify education response to promote continuity of learning and physical/social/psychological wellbeing. In line with the growth in Education programme, there is a strong need to have a staff on the ground in Pohnpei to support the programme as part of the UNICEF team, working in close collaboration with government, partners and communities, as needed.

How can you make a difference?

Under the guidance and general supervision of the Education Specialist, FSM (remotely working due to the travel restriction) as well as support from the Chief FSM and the UNICEF Pacific Education team (based in Fiji), the consultant provides professional technical, operational and administrative assistance throughout the programming process for education programmes/projects within the multi-country programme in NP countries.

The consultant provides technical assistance from the planning to delivery of results, preparing, executing, managing and implementing a variety of technical and administrative tasks to facilitate programme development, implementation, monitoring, evaluating and reporting.

Scope of Work

The assignment is for 11.5 months, during the contract duration, the consultant will conduct education activities not limited to and may change as need arise:

Support to Education programme development and planning

Provide technical and administrative support throughout all stages of programming processes by executing and administering a variety of technical programme transactions, preparing materials and documentations, and complying with organizational processes and management systems, to support programme planning, results based planning (RBM) and monitoring and evaluation of results.

Programme management, monitoring and delivery of results

Work closely and collaboratively with internal colleagues and partners to collect, store in the knowledge management system, analyze and share information on implementation issues, and prepare draft inputs for programme/donor/office reporting

Technical and operational support to programme implementation

Undertake field visits, surveys, focus group discussions and data collection including secondary data review, and share information with stakeholders to assess progress and refer to relevant officials for resolution. Report on critical issues, bottlenecks and potential problems for timely action to achieve results.

Networking and partnership building

Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with government counterparts at national and state level, national stakeholders and cross-sectoral colleagues in UNICEF through active coordination/facilitation and setting physical and virtual meetings, securing local feedback by using local and other methodologies, sharing and storing information, knowledge and human interest stories to facilitate programme implementation, build capacity of stakeholders and sustain results on education programmes.

Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

Contribute to identifying, capturing, synthesizing, and sharing lessons learned for knowledge development and capacity development of stakeholders

High level deliverables

1. Mapping of education programme and partners in NP countries;
2. Development of a data bank on the situation of education and related issues, along with source documents, are collected, compiled and files for use in SitAn, planning, factsheets, etc.
3. All the partner/team meeting minutes facilitated/coordinated stored in UNICEF knowledge management tool
4. Quarterly work plans and its associated contribution in line with the plan which include the support for implementation of ESPIIG (FSM); ECE curriculum review; COVID Accelerated Fund (FSM and RMI); school-based DRR (FSM) and inclusive education (NP countries).
5. Programme report draft submitted in a timely manner (COVID AF quarterly and 6-month report, ESPIG, donor report, etc.)
6. At least 1 human interest stories each developed on ECE programme and COVID-19;
7. Proactively support any other assigned activities related to country work plan

Supervision

The consultant will be supervised by the NP office Education Specialist in collaboration with Chief of the field office for oversight, and deliverables are approved by Chief of Education in UNICEF Pacific.

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

• A Degree in Education or a relevant field.
• A minimum of eight years of professional experience in programme planning, management, and/or research in education, is required.
• Experience in coordination, community mobilization; intersectoral collaboration is required
• Experience working with UN, national Government (national and/or state) and NGO partners, school staff is asset/desirable.
• Familiarity of FSM education system and structure required, and knowledge in other countries of North Pacific is asset
• Experience with monitoring and evaluation as well as working with and for children (e.g. focus group discussion) and data collection/analysis are asset
• Excellent written and spoken English required
• Excellent communication skills and proficiency in tools to communicate with colleagues and partners including MS word, excel, PowerPoint, reporting, virtual meeting and writing meeting minutes and reports.
• Knowledge of NP countries education system especially FSM desirable.
• Technical Knowledge of the theories, principles and methods in the following areas: Early Child Education, Inclusive Education, Disaster Risk Reduction and resilience desirable
• Strong learning mindset and proactive approach while maintaining collaborative attitude

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.