Job Description

TERMS OF REFERENCES FOR A JOINT INFRASTRUCTURAL NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF THE GPE FUNDED GRANTS – SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION GRANT (STG) AND GIRLS’ EDUCATION ACCELERATOR (GEA)

1. INTRODUCTION

The Federal Government of Somalia through the Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education secured funding from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) with Save the Children and CARE International being the Grants Agents for GPE funded System Transformation Grant (STG) and Girls’ Education Accelerator (GEA) respectively. Both the STG and GEA are designed to contribute to the achievement of the government priorities reform defined in the 2023 Partnership Compact which is aligned with the priorities of the Education Sector Strategic Plan (2022-2026). Both grants are three-years intended to enhance equitable access to quality and inclusive education in rural and urban areas by addressing supply and demand barriers, particularly those related to gender and social inclusion.

The STG grant aims to significantly enhance the quality of education for 240,700 children through various interventions. One of the key objectives under Outcome 1 is to bolster the teaching workforce by introducing 3,000 new teachers, resulting in a 16% increase in teaching staff. Additionally, the program seeks to enhance teacher qualifications by adding 6,000 trained educators, raising the ratio of qualified teachers to 58%, and aiming to boost the proportion of primary female teachers by 20%. For Outcome 2, the program aims to improve student academic achievements, aiming for a 65% score in the EGRA assessment among third graders and seeking to elevate the primary school completion rate to 90% in targeted schools. These improvements are supported by robust engagement with local communities and education authorities to ensure the sustainability of program interventions. Recognizing the significant contribution of households to education in the Somali context, the STG will enhance the collaboration between schools and local communities, encouraging increased investment in educational activities, including match funding, labor, and in-kind contributions. Furthermore, the program plans to collaborate with the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Higher Education (MOECHE) to set up a National Education Fund, attracting substantial contributions from the local private sector and diaspora to boost domestic financing. Under Outcome 3, the program is set to implement an effective education financing framework that incorporates accountability and transparency, improve teacher management with the activation of the National Teachers Policy, and fortify the Somali government's capacity to deliver education services efficiently.

The overall program beneficiaries’ targets include:

• 240,700 children – of which 87% are out of school; 50% are girls; 6% are children with disabilities (208,700 out of school; 120,350 girls; 14,500 children with disabilities).

• 6,000 teachers (of which 3,000 are new teachers and 3,000 are existing teachers in the system).
• Approximately 1,400 Community Education Committees (CECs) members.
• Approximately 45 government officials (DEOs, REOs, MOECHE, FMS MOEs staff).

The GEA program aims to address gender disparities in education sector, focusing on strengthening system capacity on gender and inclusion to boost equitable access and gender-responsive and socially inclusive practices at classroom and school management levels. The GEA will support the MOECHE and FMS MOEs to enroll an additional 41,140 vulnerable girls through various interventions. Key objectives under outcome 1 include (i) construct 20 new girls’ schools in underserved areas with high concentration of out-of-school girls and limited or no provision of education services and (ii) provide capitation grants and special grants to maximize access for extremely vulnerable girls. For outcome 2, the grant aims to improve girls’ learning outcomes by addressing

barriers including limited availability of qualified female teachers, limited teacher capacity to implement gender-responsive teaching, lack of harmonized institutional guidance on gender for teacher training and coaching, limited institutional capacity for gender-responsive teacher training and coaching and lack of policies and guidelines on school safeguarding. Under outcome 3, the program seeks to address barriers to gender-responsive planning and policy development / implementation including limited availability of staff qualified to serve internal resources and advocates for gender and inclusion at the MOECHE/ FMS MOEs, limited capacity at FMS MOEs level for gender-responsive and inclusive education planning and rollout of the Gender and SEND & IE policies, lack of guidelines for systematic tracking of gender and inclusion in quality assurance processes, limited tracking of gender and inclusion in institutional monitoring processes and lack of consistent guidance for incorporation of gender and inclusion in EiE.

The overall program beneficiary targets include:

• 15,600 vulnerable out of school girls in underserved areas with highest concentration of out-of-school girls and limited or no provision of education services will be enrolled through construction of 20 new schools for girls.
• 15,000 vulnerable out-of-school girls will be enrolled through capitation grants.
• 10,000 vulnerable out-of-school girls and girls affected by emergencies receiving 30-month special grants to enrol and remain in primary school.
• 900 (60% girls) out-of-school children with severe disabilities attending special needs education through a 30-month special grant.

2. OBJECTIVE OF THE CONSULTANCY

The two Grants Agents (SCI and CARE) in collaboration with MOECHE and FMS MOEs requires the services of a consultancy firm to conduct a joint needs assessment in all Federal Member States including Galmudug, Hirshabelle, Jubbaland, Southwest and Banadir region to identify current needs and gap in primary schools in each of the FMS for construction of new girls’ schools, construction/rehabilitation of classrooms in existing public primary schools, and construction/rehabilitation of WASH facilities. The joint needs assessment will also be conducted in newly liberated areas across four Federal Member States (Galmudug, Hirshabelle, Southwest and Jubaland). The assessment will also find out the enrolment records and availability of teaching and learning materials in target locations and schools.

The joint needs assessment will use a combination of secondary data review (from the Education Cluster, EMIS, displacement databases, national household surveys, and existing research projects) and primary data collection to identify priority needs. The assessment result will guide the construction interventions of the GPE funded grants

– STG and GEA. Moreover, the findings will also be shared through the Education Sector Committee (ESC), allowing other education stakeholders to leverage this information for further school infrastructure investments.

2.1 Specific objectives of the consultancy

• Understand the project context to better inform STG and GEA interventions.
• Identifyprioritydistricts/locationsforconstructionofnewschoolsforgirls,

construction/expansion/rehabilitation of new classrooms in public schools and construction/rehabilitation/expansion of WASH facilities.

• Work with FMS MOEs including BRA to decide on target districts/locations and IDP settlements for project support.
• Identify target schools for infrastructure support, capitation grants, special grants, scholarships and other support.
• At the identified target schools in each location, capture data from enrolment records and other necessary school information to inform the allocation/ tracking of capitation grants and other interventions.
• Map out other on-going project interventions focusing on primary education in each of the FMS including newly liberated areas and their target locations/schools and beneficiaries.

2.2 Scope of the consultancy

The GEA and STG will implement activities in Banadir, Jubbaland, Hirshabelle, Galmudug and Southwest State of Somalia. The joint needs assessment will involve on-site data collection in all districts/schools selected based on discussions with five FMS MOEs and BRA and a review of existing EMIS data.

2.3 Expected Tasks

The consultant will receive technical supervision and guidance from FGS MOECHE, FMS MOEs and the two Grants Agents (CARE and SCI) and will be accountable to FGS MOECHE, FMS MOEs and the two Grants Agents (CARE and SCI) for quality results and timely delivery of services. The consultancy will be required to conduct the following tasks:

• Submit an inception report inclusive of the proposed tools, sampling approach, detailed analysis framework, quality control measures and work plan.
• Submit a detailed work plan as part of the inception report and updated data collection plan following training of enumerators. The work plan should include plans/frameworks for data collection, data entry, data cleaning, transcription, and translation.
• Translate data collection tools from English to Somali. Note that backtranslation will be required for accuracy.
• Take lead in the training of enumerators following guidelines and training plans outlined in the inception report, as well as quality control protocols and guidelines for enumerators.
• Prepare all resources and related supplies for data collection, including mobile phones with e-versions of the tools uploaded into the Kobo platform.
• Undertake all data collection in the field, following the approach outlined in the approved inception report.
• Support in data collection related logistics, including but not limited to deployment of enumerators to the target areas, and supervisors; and where required coordinate with CARE and SCI to access each area with prior approval from the FGS MOECHE and FMS MOEs.
• Upload datasets completed by the team daily for verification by the evaluation team (Grant Agents and MOECHE, FMS MOEs). Note that all school-level data should include geolocation information and verifiable geotagged photos.
• Clean and collate datasets following the protocols agreed upon in the inception report.
• Conduct data entry, where necessary, simultaneous to data collection to prevent delays.
• Conduct all necessary data quality and ethical control measures.
• Analyze the data as per agreed upon analysis framework.
• Provide a draft but comprehensive assessment report and a draft presentation of findings for review. Incorporate technical feedback received from FGS MOECHE, FMS MOEs, CARE and SCI and provide revised final versions of the two documents for final approval.

2.4 Deliverables

The main deliverables for this assignment are as follows:

• Inception report with a comprehensive work plan outlining all tasks to be completed within the duration mentioned for this assignment, data collection tools, responsible persons, timeframe for completion of each task and resources required for each task (within five days of signing the contract).
• Detailed data collection and analysis plan, quality assurance plan as part of inception report.
• Translations of data collection tools from English into Somali.
•    Training plan (including summaries of training sessions and relevant presentations/ exercises).
• Complete list of enumerators/supervisors per location, including contact details.
• Daily uploading of data; weekly data collection report.
• The report should catalogue and include, in annexes, the final survey and training tools used (inclusive of Somali and English versions).
• Complete set of cleaned electronic datasets; analysis scripts; hard copies of surveys (only where circumstances do not allow for electronic data collection); audio/ image/ video files; and daily data collection reports/ data collection logs signed by enumerators and field supervisors.
• Data entry and cleaning (if required) should start simultaneously with data collection and data should be uploaded on a daily basis.
• Final report, based on the agreed upon analysis framework. The methodological section should include a discussion of data collection challenges and limitations, including a summary of data collection activities and the timeline of data collection, number of total assessment surveys collected and detailed data collection log per location as an annex.
• Final summary report.
• PowerPoint presentation of findings.

3. TECHNICAL APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY

CARE and SCI in collaboration with FGS MOECHE and FMS MOEs proposes a participatory, multi-stakeholder approach in undertaking this assignment. The joint needs assessment will employ a mixed method approach to draw conclusions on the priority needs in the Federal Member States in improving access to quality. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies of data collection will be employed. The joint assessment will use a combination of secondary data review (from the Education Cluster, EMIS, displacement databases, national household surveys, and existing research projects) and primary data collection to identify priority needs.

3.1 Literature review

Literature review will involve a study of the GEA and STG program documents as well as FGS MOECHE and FMS MOEs documents including literature from other sources about the status of education in the Federal Member States. The consultancy will also be provided with relevant documents upon requests for review and background information.

3.2 Data collection

Secondary Data Review: This involves analyzing existing data sources from various organizations like the Education Cluster, EMIS (Education Management Information System), displacement databases, national household surveys, and research projects. This helps gather information on education needs and existing infrastructure.

Primary Data Collection: This involves collecting new data directly from the selected districts/locations using survey questionnaires targeting specific populations (e.g., FMS MOEs officials, communities, school administrators) to understand their needs and school utilization; interviews and in-depth discussions with key stakeholders like education officials or community leaders and field observations to assess existing school facilities and WASH infrastructure to determine their condition and capacity.

It is expected that the consultancy firm will come up with innovative ways of combining both assessment methods to identify priority areas for school construction, classroom expansion, and WASH improvement for girls' education.

4. REPORTING AND FEEDBACK

After the joint needs assessment, the consultant is expected to do a debriefing with the FGS MOECHE, FMS MOEs and the Grants Agents (CARE and SCI) to provide feedback and incorporate their relevant inputs. The consultancy should then prepare a draft report and make a presentation to FGS MOECHE, FMS MOEs, the Grants Agents (CARE and SCI), ESC and Education Cluster for their inputs after which they should prepare the final report.

The consultants/Consulting firm needs to produce three well bound hard copies of the final report and soft copies of all the reports sent electronically to FGS MOECHE, FMS MOEs and the Grants Agents (CARE and SCI). The electronic soft copies should be in Adobe Acrobat and MS Word.

5. EXPERTISE REQUIRED

The consulting firm should be experienced and have expertise in the following: -

• Extensive experience in research work and in education assessments/evaluations, including previous working experience in Somalia.
• A degree in education planning and management and/or other relevant fields. Postgraduate qualification in the same will be an added advantage.
• Prior experience in the development and roll out of large-scale education surveys in Somalia.
• Knowledge in research methodologies and application of various tools including practical experience in assessments, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of community-based interventions.
• Have excellent analytical and writing skills.
• Previous joint assessment needs or evaluations, especially under GPE funded projects will be an added advantage.

Further, bidders are required to clearly identify and provide CVs for all those proposed in the team, clearly stating their roles and responsibilities for these joint needs assessment. The proposed assessment team should include the technical expertise and practical experience required to deliver the scope of work and joint assessment outputs.

This assignment will be carried out in a total of 60 days as per the breakdown contained in the table above.

7. COST ESTIMATE AND TIMEFRAME

The Consulting firms are requested to quote their price for this assignment and to mention when they will be available to carry out this assignment. Due to the urgency of the assignment, time will be of essence in the award of this contract. FGS MOECHE, SCI and CARE anticipates starting the assignment on or before June 1, 2024.

8. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CLIENTS – FGS MOECHE, FMS MOEs, SCI AND CARE. In support to the consultancy to undertake the assignment, SCI and CARE will;

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Experiences and Qualifications

Skills Required

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