UNICEF recruits 01 Consultant
Consultancy – Development of the school grant policy with a focus on learner targeted funding, Windhoek, Namibia (For Namibia Nationals only)
Job Number: 525595 | Vacancy Link
Locations: Africa: Namibia
Work Type : Consultancy
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For every child,
BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION
Since gaining independence in 1990, Namibia has made progress towards achieving education for all and has set national development priorities that impact the education sector through Vision 2030 and the National Development Plans. Over the past two decades, the country has embarked upon various reforms in the education sector to redress inequalities resulting from past discriminatory policies and to fulfil its constitutional obligation of ensuring the right to education for all citizens.
To address these past imbalances, the Ministries responsible for education have continued to receive the largest portion of the National Budget, translating to more than 25% of the national budget.
Education is provided within a conducive legislative and policy environment. The MoEAC has developed and is implementing several policies and strategies to ensure that all Namibian children have access to a quality equitable inclusive education.
Despite the implementation of these progressive legislative and policy documents, many children, especially from remote rural and poor communities, including children with disabilities do not benefit from access quality education services.
To allow access to education for all children in Namibia, Universal Primary Education (UPE) was introduced in 2013, with Universal Secondary Education (USE) following in 2016. However, despite these significant reforms and high-level commitments to education, both UPE and USE are not yet fully achieved in the country, with significant and concerning gender disparities with boys disadvantaged in terms of both primary and lower secondary completion.
MoEAC with assistance from UNICEF conducted a Public Expenditure Review (PER) exercise in 2017, to streamline resource allocation and optimize utilization in an efficient and equitable manner so that all children can benefit from an inclusive quality education.
Following the PER recommendations, and in the absence of a school grant policy, the MoEAC would like to develop a policy with a related Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework focusing on the utilization of school grants and related learner targeted funding. The policy and its M&E framework should focus on basic education from pre-primary through secondary education. UNICEF has been providing technical assistance and supporting the MoEAC to facilitate dialogue on the importance of equitable resource allocation to ensure that all children benefit from access to quality education. UNICEF will support the recruitment of a consultant to develop the school grant policy. In addition, UNICEF will continue to advocate for the utilization of schools grant formulas to be applied in ways that are more beneficial to individual learners to improve the quality of education.
Scope of Work
Goal and Objective:
Under the overall supervision of the Education Specialist, UNICEF, with guidance from the consultancy steering committee develop a comprehensive school grant policy for the MoEAC with a specific focus on learner targeted funding to ensure access to inclusive equitable quality education.
The specific purpose and objective of the assignment:
The purpose of this consultancy is to provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, Namibia to develop a comprehensive school grant policy and an M&E framework with a focus on learner targeted funding to ensure access and retention to education, especially for the most vulnerable and marginalised children. The consultancy will involve focus group discussions and meetings/ workshops with critical personnel in the MoEAC, private schools and stakeholders with an interest in education.
Activities and Tasks:
To obtain critical information from education stakeholders, especially within the MoEAC and to fulfil the consultancy within the allocated period, the consultant will have to undertake extensive in-depth consultations with Senior MoEAC officials, stakeholders in education and private schools, at both national and regional level in selected regions to be jointly agreed by the Consultancy Steering Committee to be established. The Committee will consist of Directors from the following Directorates in the MoEAC: Finance, Planning (PAD), Programme Quality Assurance (PQA) and UNICEF.
Drafting of school grant policy
Based on information gathered from the review of the relevant national and international documents and the stakeholder consultations, draft a school grant policy and a related Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework with agreed upon indicators with a focus on learner targeted funding. The policy document should be in line with international human rights standards and guidelines with regards to inclusive equitable quality education and should pay particular attention to the issues below:
Orphans and other vulnerable children.
Children with disabilities including inclusive qualified teachers.
School feeding to benefit all children in need.
Allocation of textbooks and assistive technology and devices for children with disabilities.
Transportation and infrastructure development.
Boarding facilities.
Funding and subsidies to private schools.
Based on the Public Expenditure Review Report and Education Policy Briefs, detail how resources should be allocated to for a learner regarding teaching and learning, in terms of:
Support to the curriculum implementation.
Textbooks and other learning support material, including for pre-vocational subjects, practical skills development.
School sports, arts and culture development.
School safety and relevant school health aspects, cleaning and sanitation
Boarding and lodging in terms of community hostel subsidy as well as mainstream government hostels, and overall maintenance and utilities.
Propose a capacity building plan, with resource implications, for staff members (Finance, PAD and PQA) to institutionalize accountability for resource allocations through monitoring and evaluation.
Outputs/Deliverables:
The total duration of the consultancy is 70 working days, spread within a period of 3.5 months starting from 16 September 2019 to 20 December 2019. Some of the work will be completed with ongoing communication between the consultant and the Education Specialist. The work includes drafting the inception report, drafting the policy and M & E framework, completion of reports and documents. The consultant is expected to hold consultations with relevant stakeholders and towards the end of the consultancy to conduct a validation workshop and provide technical and administrative assistance through a training workshop to the Finance, Planning and Programme Quality Assurance Directorates to support the implementation and monitoring of the School Grant Policy at regional and school level.
A rough timeline and deliverables are outlined below, although the schedule and workplan are to be finalized at the Inception Meeting and will be reflected in the inception report. Some activities may be delayed due to other priorities in the MoEAC. Therefore, an effort will be made to adhere to the timelines as per the deliverables. However, should additional time be required, a no-cost extension will have to be requested for the contract to be amended with prior approval.
As part of the Policy development activity, the Consultant will provide advice on the appropriateness of the existing legal and regulatory framework of prudent financial management at all levels of the basic education sector. To accomplish the objectives, the consultant is required to undertake to deliver the following:
| Deliverables |
Duration (Estimated # of days or months) |
Timeline/ Deadline |
Schedule of payment |
|
10 days |
16 September |
10% |
|
10 days |
28 September |
20% |
|
10 days |
28 October |
10% |
|
15 days |
15 November |
10% |
|
10 days |
29 November |
20% |
|
15 days |
20 December |
30% |
| Total |
70 days |
|
100% |
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Education:
The Consultant must have at least an advanced university degree (Masters) in education financing/ economics or related field.
Experience:
Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in public service administration and management, or policy development, preferably in the education sector.
Proven experience in policy development a must. Good understanding of the right to inclusive quality education.
Good understanding of gender issues, and human-rights based approach.
Experience in public expenditure reviews, data analysis and systems strengthening are a strong asset.
Proven track record as a team member or/and a team leader.
Experience in working with UNICEF and Government Ministries considered as advantage;
Demonstrable Skills:
Critical analytical skills and creativity and innovation.
Excellent team working and interpersonal communication skills.
Ability to work under pressure, handle multiple tasks with short deadlines and the ability to work across unit boundaries.
Ability to convene different sectors and stakeholders to achieve multi-sectoral coordination.
Ability to work collaboratively and respectively in cross-culturally settings, working with a range of local and international stakeholders and others.
Ability to provide mentoring and capacity building.
Excellent written and oral communication skills.
Language and IT skills:
Excellent knowledge of spoken and written English, with advanced computer skills in MS office programmes
Competencies:
Good analytical, negotiating, communication and advocacy skills;
Demonstrated ability to work in a multi-cultural environment and establish harmonious and effective working relationships, both within and outside the work place;
Versatility, judgment and maturity.
Administrative issues
The consultant will be contracted by UNICEF through a competitive bidding process. He/she will be supervised by the Education Specialist and report to the Chief Adolescent Development, Education and Protection.
The consultant will have an Inception meeting, interviews with MoEAC Officials at national and regional level and education stakeholders, including private schools receiving government subsidies, for the presentations of the draft documents and, training workshops and presentation of the final report, which includes the final out brief meeting with the project Steering Committee and UNICEF.
Payment will be made based on the approval of deliverables.
The contractor will work on its own computer(s) and use its own office resources and materials in the execution of this assignment.
The contractor’s fee shall be inclusive of all office administrative and field travel costs prior to commencement of work.
Government and the UN system shall be entitled to all property rights, including but not limited to patents, copyrights and trademarks, regarding material which bears a direct relation to, or is made in consequence of, the services provided to the Organization by the service provider. In certain cases, Government and the UN system would be prepared to share intellectual property rights, requiring at a minimum, that Government and the UN system must be acknowledged in all use and publications of the data generated under the present consultancy, and retains the right to use the data for further analysis and publication with acknowledgement of the research institution concerned.
How to Apply
Qualified candidates are requested to complete an application including profile to the respective advertisement on https://www.unicef.org/about/employ/ Please indicate your ability, availability and financial proposal/quote to complete the terms of reference above.
All field travel required for this Terms of Reference should be quoted for in the financial proposal.
Rates must include all expenses related to the assignment (e.g. consultancy fee and field trips).
Applications submitted without a fee/ rate will not be considered.
If you have not been contacted within 2 months of the closing date, please accept that your application was unsuccessful. Regret emails will be sent only to shortlisted/contacted candidates.
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.
View our competency framework at http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf
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, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.
Remarks:
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.
Closing Date Mon Sep 02 2019 22:55:00 GMT+0100 (Afr. centrale Ouest)