South Sudan: Primary School Leadership Programme and Primary School Inspection and Supervision Programme National Baseline, Situationa Analysis and Data Management

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Primary School Leadership Programme (PSLP) and Primary School Inspection and Supervision Programme

National Baseline, Situational Analysis, and Data Management Consultancy

Save the children in South Sudan

Save the Children is the world's leading independent organisation for children. With work in 120 countries, we save children's lives; we fight for their rights; we help them fulfil their potential. We work together, with our partners, to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives. We have over two million supporters worldwide and raised 1.6 billion dollars last year to reach more children than ever before, through programmes in health, nutrition, education, protection and child rights, also in times of humanitarian crises.

Save the Children has been operating in South Sudan since the early 1990s and currently implements programmes in eight out of ten states, including the states most affected by the current conflict. Save the Children works closely with local and international non-governmental organizations across a number of sectors including education, health and nutrition, child protection, child rights governance, food security and livelihoods. With a large education service delivery and teacher development portfolio in South Sudan, Save the Children works to strengthen education systems and infrastructure as well collaborating on syllabus development.

Primary School Leadership Programme (PSLP)

As part of the Global Partnership for Education Programme, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United States Agency for International Development UNICEF awarded funding to Save the Children as the lead of a five partner consortium to develop and roll out a national school leadership and national school inspector and supervisor professional development programmes. These programmes will be delivered nationwide at state level equipping and accrediting school leaders and inspectors and supervisors with the skills they need to improve schools in order to raise both school and pupil performance. Designed to complement and integrate into South Sudan’s existing General Education Sector Plan, this project seeks a step-change in the performance of school leaders, supervisors and inspectors, whilst delivering long term, system wide mechanisms for continuous improvement.The PSLP is a 3 year programme, January 2015 to December 2018.

With a payment by results funding mechanism and a consortium of partners including Solidarity with South Sudan, Yei Teacher Trainer College, IBIS and the WindleTrust International, a key to the success of the programme will be setting methodologically rigorous baselines and end-lines and data management on school leaders. These two objectives of the programme will lead to improved school management and leadership through training of school leaders, managers, inspectors and supervisors and strengthened inspection and school leadership systems:

1. To develop and Strengthen Primary School Leadership and Management systems for the Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MoEST), and to empower school managers and leaders with management skills
2. To review, validate, finalize, and implement the School Supervision and Inspection strategy and training programme

To achieve the objectives the Primary School Leadership Programme will deliver the following implementation strands:

· Review and (where necessary) develop policies and guidance for School Leaders

· Review and (where necessary) develop policies and guidance for Inspectors and Supervisors

· Development of course material for a basic school leader programme, and national delivery to up to 9,600 school leaders and teachers

· Development of syllabus, course material, modules, assessment systems for a 6-9 month distance + face-to-face accredited professional qualification programme for 275 school leaders

· Development of course material for a basic supervisor and inspector programme, and national delivery to up to 800 individuals

· Development of syllabus, course material, modules, assessment systems for a 6-9 month distance + face-to-face accredited professional qualification programme for 225 supervisors and inspectors

· Support for four Teacher Training colleges to independently deliver and asses the two accredited courses beyond the lifecycle of the programme

Consultancy outline

The delivery of this project pivots on collecting existing practices and procedures which feed into program design as well performance monitoring. Interested parties are encouraged to consider applying for one or both of the following. We encourage applications which include both A and B (possibly from two organizations within one application), but this is not a requirement. Consultants applying for option A or B would agree to work closely with Save the Children and other firms contracted to satisfy all the deliverables.

Element A: (1) National baseline on school leadership, school inspection, and school supervision (to inform measure of effectiveness); (2) National Needs assessment situational analysis on state of school leadership, inspection and supervision (to inform design and priorities of courses). Data is to be collected through a desk-based review and primary data collection at school/county/state level with mixed methods approach, including data collection at school level in 2 states and a policy analysis. The focus of this is to get a snapshot of the status of school leadership and school inspection and supervision to inform programme design. In combination with data already available at the national level, this would serve as national baseline. Possible evaluation questions to consider are: What is the current status of school leadership and school inspection and supervision? What initiatives are working / have worked in South Sudan? What are the strengths of the current systems for which to build upon, and weaknesses to address? This will serve as an indicator of the current status of service provision and gaps, against which the success of the project will be measured

Element B: Delivering data monitoring/handing and producing periodic reports throughout the life of the project which will be fed to all consortium members and state performance against set targets. A data Management company is requested to manage key data generated from the programme using predominantly remote methods and to turn these into periodic reports and to incorporate into national data systems.

Deliverables

Element A

· All tools and data sets, including questionnaires and interview guides for approval

· Baseline with Situational Analysis and Needs Assessments PPT (headline findings only – approx. 20-slides)

· Baseline with Situational Analysis and Needs Assessments report

Element B

· Quarterly report of key performance indicators from each participating school (accredited courses only)

· Monthly report with data on performance of the 500 Accredited-course participants to include course attendance level, assignment submission, and assignment grades

· Quarterly report on all states progress against pre-agreed targets

· Incorporation of PSLP data from all four courses into national data systems

· Quarterly programme quality report, including quality of training programmes, participant feedback and data on performance of individual trainers

Accepted consultants would be the preferred partner for evaluation however this is dependent on the quality of baseline produced and will be officially contracted at a later date.

Consultancy requirements

We are looking for a consultancy company(s) with extensive experience conducting baselines and end-line evaluations and which has a thorough understanding of the South Sudan education sector. Experience working with consortiums conducting independent Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning and data management is also vital. The following are essential skills/experience for this assignment:

· Master’s degree in Monitoring, Evaluation, Development, education policy or other related area of study

· Significant experience in conducting situational analysis / mapping exercises in conflict-affected locations

· Demonstrable record of conducting qualitative and quantitative baselines and end-line evaluations

· Expertise in statistical analyses (familiarity with data processing and data analysis software, such as SPSS)

· Experience of managing national datasets and making them accessible to others through online and print

· Experience working with South Sudanese education actors including working with the national MoEST and state MoEST officials

· Cost-effective

· Ability to work cooperatively with other agencies / MoEST

Apply

Interested Parties are requested to submit a proposal explaining their comprehension of the proposed consultancy, and how they would approach this assignment with a summary of their methodology especially in terms of how the party plans to meet the consultancy objectives. The application should include minimum three CVs of the persons to be involved in the assignment, relevant experience, a detailed budget in US$ and time availability.

All proposals should be received by 09.00 (Eastern Africa Time) 24-June 2015 through rehan.sajid@savethechildren.org

Timeline

24June Application deadline

24-26June Review of applications and successful company contacted to deliver ‘Element A: Baseline and Scoping Study’ and ‘Element B: Data Management’

3July Methodology finalized and agreed by all parties (Element A)

10 August Draft-1 Baseline and Scoping Study (Element A)

10 August Programme Data Management protocol agreed and connected to data from national baseline and scoping study (Element B)

28 August Final Baseline and Scoping Study (Element A)

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