External Consultant

TERM OF REFERENCES

Position Title: External consultant
REACH centers: Ha Noi, Hai Duong, Hue, Da Nang, H?i An

1.    Back ground

REACH is a local non-government, non-profit organisation which specialises in providing vocational training, career advice and job placement for Vietnam’s most disadvantaged youth (www.reach.org.vn)

REACH provides practical training for 3 to 6 months in areas including food and beverage, sales and marketing, web and graphic design, housekeeping, beauty spa & makeup, hairdressing, cooking, 5 star hotel training (YCI program), coding and 3D modelling across training centres in Hanoi, Danang, Hue, Hoi An and Hai Duong. Our goal is to ensure that 80% of students are in employment six to twelve months after graduating from their course.

REACH has established social enterprise initiatives aimed to diversify the funding source. This also enables REACH to develop a more practical training program, which is a combination of classroom training and rotation internship at the social enterprises. Since 2016, REACH has been studying and piloting different social enterprise models including EM Hair Salon and KOI Bento, Japanese lunch box delivery services.

2.    REACH Program Objectives

2.1.    Workforce Readiness Program as the core program

• Outcome 1: Workforce training and placement - Develop technical skills and life skills for disadvantaged youth and help them with quality employment opportunities
• Outcome 2:  Job quality and progression

2.2.    IT Training Pilot Program starting March 2017

• Outcome: Disadvantaged youth increase their level of work readiness and opportunities to enter IT-related jobs with high value-added transferable IT skills that will allow them to gain quality jobs and carve out longer-term career pathways

2.3.    REACH Social Enterprise as the business function of REACH starting 2016

• Outcome 1: Develop sustainable social enterprise ventures that cater to strong market demand and align with REACH mission
• Outcome 2: Effective integration of training programs into social businesses
• Outcome 3: Increase income generation from REACH Social Enterprise

In order to assess to what extent REACH has achieved during past nearly 3 years, the overall program evaluation is necessary. The evaluation will help REACH to access achievements, learnings, challenges as well as design appropriate actions for more effective implementation of the program in the next period.

3.    Evaluation objectives

3.1.    To identify REACH achievements and assess the effectiveness of REACH’s intervention and development to identify where the gaps are, and that all aspects of the process are running smoothly and compare with other effective vocational training models. Evaluating REACH’s achievements in different areas:

• The overall performance of REACH in terms of the total number of students educated over a certain time period and the percentage of students who are in employment six to twelve months after their course has finished, to ensure we are meeting our own high standards.

• The right-targeted youth are recruited and selected for REACH program; to be examined are:
  
  • ­The student picking process to determine if it is being followed properly, to avoid bias, favoritism or prejudice
  • ­If REACH covers all of the needs of the youth that they educate, and if there are any missing needs, find a way to fulfill them
  • ­The criteria by which we pick students, to ensure that the current trends are followed and there are no redundant or under-represented criteria

• Disadvantaged youth are equipped with necessary job skills and life skills reflect on training quality management
  
  • ­Examine if REACH maintains and upholds the practices in its Quality Assurance System to comply with regulated standards
  • ­Evaluate the effectiveness of the training program. It needs to be determined that the courses still meet the demands and trends of the job market, and that if any courses that are losing relevance, they are examined, to ensure that we still provide high-value courses
  • ­Any recommendations and potential improvements to the courses should be considered to keep the standards of the courses as high as possible

• Business network
  
  • ­Evaluate how strong REACH business network is as the quantity and quality of business network expansion, the level of their engagement in our program, do they help to add to the quality of the training and job placement

3.2.    Evaluate job quality and progression

• Job placement:
  
  • ­Evaluate the current job level of REACH students in the sectors where REACH educates, when compared to the standards set by REACH and required by labor market.
  • ­Evaluate how long students remain in their job field after they have left the REACH support cycle in order to determine how serious they are about pursuing that career; for the three month courses, the cycle is nine months, three studying at REACH and six months of follow-up, and for the six month courses, the cycle is eighteen months, six studying at REACH and twelve months of follow up
  • ­Comparison of different sectors: There needs to be a comparison of the job characteristics in all of the different sectors in which REACH train their students, to make sure that there is a fair distribution of resources and training materials. It is also necessary to compare the return on investment for each of the different sectors, to evaluate that measure of success of the courses, and to determine how effective the funding is, and how it differs between the courses

• Quality of life
  
  • ­Not all quality of life changes come from job placements and increased income, there are also many intangible things that can change, such as happiness, satisfaction, and family security. REACH conducts three surveys on all of our students, one before they start their course, one at the end of their course, and one at the end of the job follow-up period; we need to evaluate the effectiveness of the surveys to understand if they give us an accurate picture of how the students’ quality of life has changed during their time at REACH
  • ­REACH also need to determine if these surveys are the correct tool to best represent how quality of life has changed for the students, and to get recommendations and improvements for the tools we currently use

3.3.    Impact of REACH’s social enterprises, specifically KOI Bento and EM Hair Salon

In 2016 and early 2017, REACH launched two new social enterprise initiatives: training hair salon EM and KOI bento. Hairdressing and cooking training will be integrated into these social enterprises, which enable students to have a chance to get real work experience and interact with real customers, hence improve their skills. It is important to assess how the training of students affects their business, and what impacts and benefits it might bring; what effects does it have on the employees, the students and the customers.  We need to evaluate what changes the social enterprises (SEs) have made to REACH, in:

• The impact and benefits to the training:
  It needs to be assessed how the introduction of the SEs has changed the way the courses are taught, and whether the addition of a more practical style has improved the standards of education and outcomes

• The employment benefits:
  We must evaluate the impact on job placement rates, salaries and promotions/pay raises since the establishment of the SEs; does having experience in a real work environment improve the success of career opportunities after the students have completed their courses

• Evaluate the cost effectiveness of the SEs, and determine whether the hybrid model provides a better return on investment than the previous model; it is important to measure the cost effectiveness in both the training and business aspects of the SEs

4.    Scope of evaluation: 

• ­Geographical coverage: 5 REACH training centers in Hanoi, Hai Duong and Da Nang, Hue, Hoi An
• ­Program coverage: this evaluation needs to cover the project activities that implemented from 2016  to November 2018

5.    Evaluation approach and methods

The recruited consultant/consultant team will expected to propose the approach and a detailed methodology based on a review of project document and the information given in this TOR to meet the objectives of the evaluation. It is expected that the methodology will include both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods and will consider both primary and secondary data sources.

Methodology and sample size of the evaluation will be finalized based on proposal from the consultants.

6.    Deliverables and timeframe

The evaluation work is take place within December 2018 and maximum in 22 working days

The evaluation will be supervised by Pham Thi Thanh Tam REACH Executive Director. Other key focal points of REACH will be Doan Tuan Dung Northern Regional Manager, Hoang Truong Phuoc Ky Central Regional Manager, Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen, M&E Officer

7.    Qualification and experience of the consultant

• ­At least 05 years in conducting external evaluations,
• ­Strong qualitative and quantitative research skills 
• ­Experience with youth development, especially vulnerable youth
• ­Ability to follow timeline and result oriented
• ­Understanding Vietnam vocational training context is preferable
• ­Experience in vocational training evaluation is preferred
• ­Proven communications, negotiation skills, conceptual and analysis skills

8.    How to submit proposal:

CV of consultant/ consultant team demonstrate experiences in research and external evaluation and a proposal of evaluation services, time line and to be sent to [email protected] before 27 November 2018.