Short-term National Consultant for the Increasing Quality of and Access to Early Childhood Education (ECE) Services Project

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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

Zero to eight years is the period when a child’s linguistic, social-emotional and physical development is the fastest. Research shows that during this period, characterized as the early childhood years, most brain and language development is completed[1]. This critical early period is when children start to develop thinking, learning, speaking, questioning, self-regulating and social interaction skills. During these significant years of early growth and development, the connections in the brain are intensively established[2].

Accordingly, early childhood education (ECE)[3] aims to prepare children for social and school life by supporting essential development areas like mental, socio-emotional, language, motor skills, and self-care. Research shows that quality education during the early years increases the development potential of children and has a positive influence on their preparedness for primary school and their success level in school during formal education in the short and medium-term. In the long term,

quality early learning plays an instrumental role in developing skills that determine sustainable outcomes in life[4]. This influence, in turn, points to the strength of ECE in building human capital by investing in the individual starting during the first years of life.

Every child deserves the opportunity to survive, develop, and reach their full potential and has the right to access quality education. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has guaranteed this right for all children. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), Target 4.2 clearly states that all girls and boys shall benefit from quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) services, care, and pre-primary education by 2030. Although all the member states adopted the SGDs in 2015, countries still struggle to provide accessible and quality preschool education for all children.

According to the 11th National Development Plan (NDP) and the Ministry of National Education’s (MoNE) Education Vision 2023, Turkey still faces challenges in providing quality and accessible education for all children. However, there has been significant progress in overcoming these issues in the last decade. In addition, Turkey is committed to providing at least one year of compulsory ECE for all five-year-olds by 2023, resulting in more demand for quality ECE services across the country.

Even though Turkey has put remarkable effort into increasing the accessibility of ECE services, Turkey still has one of the lowest net enrolment rates (NER) for preschool education among OECD countries.[5] The preschool education NER of five-year-old children is 68.30% (67.23% for girls and 69.32% for boys) and 39.11% for three-to-five-year-old children shows that substantially more investment is needed to reach the 2023 targets.[6] There are also several other constraints that Turkey is facing which impede full ECE enrolment, such as parents’ practical knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding ECE, quality of ECE services, lack of developmentally appropriate and accessible learning environment, and financial barriers.

ECE is one of the priority areas of the UNICEF Turkey Country Programme (2021-2025). UNICEF has supported and complemented the Government of Turkey’s efforts to improve ECE services by providing technical, financial, and supply support. Furthermore, to support Turkey in addressing the challenges noted above, overcoming the existing barriers to ECE, and ensuring that children reach their full potential, MoNE and UNICEF recently began a new collaboration through the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) – II Programme and partnered in a project called, “Increasing Quality of and Access to Early Childhood Education Services (ECE)”. This project aims to achieve the following four main results over a period of three years (November 2020 – October 2023):

Result 1: ECE services are expanded for 3-6-year-old children, especially for the most vulnerable communities.

Result 2: ECE service capacity and curriculum and materials are revised to increase the quality of ECE services based on national standards.

Result 3: Families’ beliefs and attitudes regarding the quality and value of ECE services, especially in the most vulnerable communities, is positively changed.

Result 4: A conducive environment for increased access to quality ECE services is promoted by revised ECE legislation.

Within the scope of Result 1, MoNE and UNICEF plan to install 300 container classrooms to increase pre-primary physical space in schools. In addition to the container classrooms, 400 playgrounds will be installed to facilitate outdoor activities of pre-primary children. The container classrooms and playgrounds will be installed in the schoolyards of selected schools in 20 pilot provinces in Turkey.[7] Companies hired by UNICEF will carry out all the construction work, and UNICEF will be closely monitoring the production, installation, and handover processes of the container classrooms and playgrounds.

[1] National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2004.

[2] Shonkoff and Phillips, 2000.

[3] ECE, early learning, preschool education, and pre-primary education are used interchangeably in the narrative.

[4] Campbell and Ramey, 2004.

[5] Aran et al. (2009) indicated that Turkey met only four out of ten indicators that benchmark the quality and access of ECD across OECD countries.

[6] Resmi İstatistik (2019), National Education Statistic Formal Education 2019/20.

[7] Pilot provinces: Adana, Ankara, Antalya, Aydın, Bitlis, Bursa, Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Gaziantep, İstanbul, İzmir, Kastamonu, Konya, Manisa, Mardin, Samsun, Şanlıurfa, Tekirdağ, Trabzon and Van.




2. SCOPE OF THE CONSULTANCY

This consultancy establishes a short-term arrangement with an individual consultant who will provide professional civil engineering services for UNICEF Turkey Country Office (TCO) during the production, installation, and handover of the container classrooms and playgrounds.

3. TASKS OF THE CONSULTANCY

(1) Conduct regular on-site visits to the company’s factory that produces the container classrooms and playgrounds to monitor the production of container classrooms and playgrounds according to the technical specifications and blueprints specified in the contracts between UNICEF TCO and the company.

(2) Conduct regular field monitoring visits to schools where the container classrooms and playgrounds will be installed to monitor the installation and handover processes and ensure the quality of the installation and supervise and confirm smooth handover to MoNE

(3) Other relevant tasks including participating in ad-hoc meetings with external partners and additional field visits as required.

4. DELIVERABLES AND TIMELINE

The following table is a tentative plan that summarizes tasks, deliverables, timeline, and estimated person-days needed. The contracted individual consultant is expected to carry out the detailed tasks outlined in the table below in line with the agreed-upon work calendar under the supervision of the UNICEF education officer. The bi-weekly reports format, content and attachments, including a checklist for visits will be decided mutually by the UNICEF education officer and the consultant once s/he is recruited. The contracted individual consultant cannot make any changes in the tasks, deliverables, timelines, or person-days unless UNICEF approves in writing.

No

Tasks

Deliverables

Timeline

Estimated person-days

1

Conduct regular factory visits to where the container classrooms and playgrounds are being fabricated to monitor the production of container classrooms and playgrounds according to the technical specifications and blueprints.

Bi-weekly reports disseminating the results of factory visits

October 2021-December 2022

60 days

2

Conduct regular field visits to schools where container classrooms and playgrounds are being installed to monitor the installation and handover of container classrooms and playgrounds and ensure the quality of the handed-over structure.

Bi-weekly reports disseminating the results of field visits.

October 2021 – December 2022

120 days

3

Other relevant tasks including participating in ad-hoc meetings with external partners and additional field visits as required.

Meeting and visit reports after participating

October 2021-December 2022

40 days

Estimated total number of working days required to submit all the deliverables*

220 days

5. ESTIMATED DURATION OF THE CONSULTANCY AND PAYMENT SCHEDULES

The contract will be effective from the date of signing until successful submission of the deliverables, which are estimated to require a total of 220 working days over 15 months. The individual consultant needs to take a break of 15 days after completing the 11.5 months of service. Given the nature of the deliverables, they will have to be produced at different stages throughout the consultancy period. Therefore, payments will be made monthly and based on bi-weekly reports that will include evidence of progress against each deliverable. The consultant should possess all the necessary equipment, materials, or software to deliver the tasks mentioned in this ToR. UNICEF TCO will not provide any stationery or a laptop.

6. DUTY STATION

The consultant is expected to be based in Ankara. The consultant may work remotely or in the UNICEF TCO.

7. TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS DURING THE CONSULTANCY

The consultant is required to travel to pilot provinces. UNICEF will cover the accommodation and travel expenses of the officially approved trips to pilot provinces, excluding Ankara. S/he is expected to arrange her/his transportation and accommodation within Ankara province (not only in the city center). Outside of Ankara province, the consultant should predict the inner-city transportation cost during her/his visits to the schools and include them under the incidental part in the financial offer.

8. QUALIFICATIONS

(1) Education: University degree in civil engineering or equivalent.

(2) Language: Professional excellence in oral and written English and Turkish is mandatory.

(3) Experience: At least three years of professional experience as a civil engineer and at least two years in prefabricated construction, especially in containers or playgrounds, preferably with public institutions and international organizations.

(4) Knowledge: Clear understanding of prefabricated structures’ technical specifications and blueprints as well as excellent knowledge of AutoCAD and SAP software.

(5) Skills: Excellent communication (including timely reporting), coordination, problem-solving, and negotiation skills are necessary.

9. COST OF THE CONSULTANCY

• Payment schedule: UNICEF will issue a contract in Turkish Lira (TRY). The payment will be made upon submitting bi-weekly reports demonstrating satisfactory progress/ completion of the deliverables mentioned above.

• Reservations: UNICEF reserves the right to terminate the contract without prior notice or withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory if the rules and the regulations regarding confidentiality, ethics, and procedures of UNICEF and the project partners are not followed if work/outputs are incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.

10. PROCESSES OF APPLICATION

Applications should be submitted in English and should include:

• Financial proposal using the Civil Engineer Financial Template.pdf

P11 Form.doc or CV, where previous experience is provided in detail

• Cover letter explaining how the prior experience is in line with the requirements described in this ToR.

• Any other document demonstrating the previous related work.

The application documents should be sent to Ms. Diğdem Kuruçayırlı - [email protected] with “Civil Engineer Consultancy - REF: EDU/TURA/2021-JJ” in the subject line. The applications will be evaluated from technical and financial points of view. Only short-listed candidates may be called for an interview. Technical aspects will be evaluated using the criteria outlined in the below matrix:

Item

Technical Evaluation Criteria

Max. Points Obtainable

1

Civil engineering experience’s in relation to the assignment

30

2

Number of years of experience in SAP and AutoCAD software

10

3

Examples of analysis undertaken or reports produced

10

4

Previous experience in monitoring playground fabrication and instalation

5

5

Experience with public instituions

5

6

Experience with the UN and international instituions

5

7

Cover letter’s in relation to the assignment

5

TOTAL TECHNICAL SCORES

70

Award criteria: Cumulative Analysis.

The evaluation and award criteria used for this ToR are cumulative analysis evaluations (point system with weight attribution). The weighting ratio between the technical and financial proposals will be 70:30. The respective importance between technical and financial scores will be weighted as 70% and 30%.

An offer is considered technically acceptable (and therefore eligible for opening of financial offers) when it obtains 49 Points out of 70 during the technical evaluation. The final selection of the consultant will be based on a combination of the technical and financial proposals with a weighting of 70% for the technical proposal and 30% for the financial proposal. In the case of cumulative analysis, the proposals scoring below 70% of the available technical points will be considered noncompliant and will be rejected and not further considered (e.g., in the case of 70:30, the passing score is 49 points out of 70).

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