Consultant for Mid-term Evaluation of EC Project

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR MID-TERM EVALUATION

 

Project ’’Promoting inclusive and relevant early childhood care and education for ethnic minority and disadvantaged children in Vietnam’’

 

 

1. Background

 

1. Aide et Action

Aide et Action International (AEA) is an international NGO, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. AEA International began its programs in 1981 and is now working in more than 20 countries across Africa, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia and China to support the development of sustainable education projects with our belief in the universal right to a quality education. Each AEA intervention is based around this ethos.

 

In Vietnam, AEA started working in 2003. Our approaches focus on early transformation during two time periods which are most critical in a child’s schooling, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) to basic education. Over 10 years of experiences along with local communities, partner organizations, and governments, we have implemented a number of projects in various locations. The organization's strategies focus on four themes including Early childhood care and education, accessibility and quality of education, education for girls and women, livelihood education, while enhancing communication and advocacy, expansion of partnership network, to enhance the position of AEA in Vietnam and searching for new funding opportunities.

 

2. CISDOMA

 

The Consultative Institute for Socio- Economic Development of Rural and Mountainous Areas (CISDOMA) [1]

 

CISDOMA is a Non-governmental organization (NGO) established under the Decision No. 25 / QD-TW dated 22/05/2000 of the Chairman of the Scientific Research on Southeast Asia - Vietnam (SEARAV).

 

Since the establishment, CISDOMA has implemented several interventions at the grassroots level, studies and surveys on topics related to sustainable agriculture, climate change and adaptive livelihoods, value chain and building capacities for ethnic minority communities. CISDOMA is a founding member of the Civil Society Inclusion in Food Security and Poverty Elimination Network (CIFPEN), an active member of a number of networks at both regional and national level including the Cooperation Development Group (CDG) and the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN). In addition, the institute has been actively engaged in different policy forums relating to rural development issues.

 

CISDOMA is implementing projects and providing consultancy services on capacity building, research and assessments on the following topics:

• Climate Change and Climate Change Adaptive Solutions;

• Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Response;

• Low Emission Agriculture, Forestry, Sustainable Livelihoods and Business Development for Farmers;

• Rights-based Approaches, Participatory Approaches in Development;

• Proposal Writing, Project Cycle Management, Evaluation of Development Projects and Programs, and

• Learner-centered Training Methodologies.

 

 

3. Project description

The overall objective is to increase access to high quality, relevant pre-school and early primary education for ethnic minority children living in 3 communes of Tam Duong district in Lai Chau Province(Ta Leng, Nung Nang, Khun Ha) through enhanced teaching pedagogies, participation of parents, and well-informed policymakers.

 

The overall objective will be achieved through the development and incorporation of enhanced and relevant teaching pedagogies, the promotion of active and constructive parental and children’s participation in the education process, and the effective advocacy of policymakers and decision makers at local and national level on best practices. Teachers at pre-school and early primary school level, most of who are from the Kinh majority ethnic group, will develop the skills, understandings and further motivation to guarantee that the rights of all children targeted by the action are being ensured. They will gain strengthened understandings of effective practices in regards to child-centred methodology (CCM), inclusive education, understanding and using the H’mong language spoken by most targeted children, and in the incorporation of supplementary bilingual materials into lesson plans. In addition, they will develop the expertise required to detect disabilities in children at a young age. Parents and other caregivers of ethnic minority children will also play key roles in this process. Parents will receive needs-specific training in nutrition, health and hygiene, among other topics to develop their capacities to more suitably care for their young children. Existing parent associations (PAs) will be strengthened and their roles in the communities expanded through training and coaching, as well as organisational reforms and further support to promote efficiency. Consequently, ethnic minority and other disadvantaged children will receive high-quality, relevant supplementary schooling in their mother-tongues, and benefit from an increasingly engaged community.

 

The strengthening of a local CSO, CISDOMA, will be an important by-product of the action. Through direct partnership with the applicant, they will develop improved technical and management capacities to deliver inclusive early childhood care and education (ECCE) projects for ethnic minority and disadvantaged children.

 

The action targets 981 children aged 3-5 years old and 974 children aged 5-8 years old (96% H’mong tribe) in 3 pre-primary schools (with 21 satellites) and 3 primary schools (with 22 satellites), 50 local authorities and policymakers (including 5 members of Tam Duong District Bureau of Education and Training (BoET), and 3 members of Lai Chau Provincial Department of Education and Training (DoET)), 95 pre-school teachers and 145 primary school teachers, and 3,369 parents, caregivers and other community members (including 150 core PA members).

 

Final beneficiaries total 30,624 community members including siblings of targeted children, families with newborn children, and relatives of other stakeholders who will indirectly benefit from this action. The understandings, capabilities and practices initiated by the action will have immediate multiplier effects on these groups as they become aware of the positive changes and increased engagement for inclusive education for young children in their communities. Moreover, the sustainability of specific elements of the action: integrated bilingual pedagogy in schools, and increasingly sensitised and effective local actors, will enable a long-term impact for the wider community and future generations.  

 

The project has the following specific objectives:

Specific Objective 1:Increased understanding of effective implementation of inclusive education for ethnic minority children aged 3-8 years old among policymakers through development, documentation and dissemination of good practices

Expected Result 1.1: Supplemental bilingual materials developed and have the support of local authorities to be incorporated into pre-school and early primary classes (Grades 1-3); specific topics include gender equality, life skills, personal safety, children’s rights, local culture and customs.

 

Expected Result 1.2: Local authorities and policymakers become better informed on good practices in relation to inclusive, bilingual education

 

Specific Objective 2:Improved learning outcomes and school readiness of ethnic minority children aged 3-8 years old through improved teaching methodologies and incorporation of relevant mother-tongue pedagogy into classroom

 

Expected Result 2.1: Teachers and teaching assistants develop improved inclusive teaching practices in support of ethnic minority and other disadvantaged children

 

Expected Result 2.2: Ethnic minority and disadvantaged children aged 3-8 years old have reduced prevalence of malnutrition and improved school performance.  

 

Specific Objective 3: Enhanced capacities of parents and communities to support inclusive education for ethnic minority children aged 3-8 years old

Expected Result 3.1: Improved capacity of parents and the community in the support of child education and development

 

Expected Result 3.2: Increased engagement of parents/community in school activities: cooking at the school, gardening, monitoring and assessment of education quality

 

 

2. OBJECTIVE

 

The overall objective is to review and evaluate overall performance, the progress made and the intended and unintended results of the project progress to targeted beneficiaries up to date in comparison with the expected results of the project. It will also draw out lessons learned and provide suggestions to project implementation in the remaining time.

 

The mid-term review has the following specific objectives:

• Assess project progress against objectives and provide findings of the implemeted activities up to date

• Assess the possible impact/outcomes of the project
  Assess the possible sustainability of any results/outcome so far and impact of the project

• Identify the possible risks that may prevent for the project from achieving its objectives and propose possible solutions

• Provide lessons learnt to date with clear recommendations to for the future implementation and to improve project delivery during the remaining duration of the project.

 

 

3. SCOPE OF WORK

 

The evaluation will cover the first half of project duration, from January 2016 to August 2017.  It will address all levels of the project’s logical framework in respects of the relevance, effectiveness, impact, sustainability, efficiency and mainstreaming of cross cutting issues (Women’s empowerment and the environment, Capacity-building of CSOs and local stakeholders, Meaningful participation of local actors, Evidence-based advocacy).



 

 

Issues to be assessed during the mid-term evaluation:

In addition to the below issues, the evaluation team is expected to identify and address other relevant issues which help provide the orientations for project team to move forward in order to achieve project objectives:

 

• Assessment of project achievement against objectives (mid-term and long term) to see how far the project has reached the goal);

• Relevance: Assess if project objectives and activities respond to the needs of local education and beneficiaries, if identified problems in the project concept and design are addressed and if adopted approaches are sound and relevant to solve these problems.

• Whether the resources have been efficiently and effectively used;

• Preliminary assessment of the impact of the project on the beneficiaries and possible unintended impacts

• Review of the logical framework matrix and the indicators to assess their appropriateness for monitoring the project performance and to what extent they are being used by the project management; the effectiveness of the relevant M&E framework and management mechanisms;

• Assessment of the projects’ ability to generate results that can be sustained and replicated at a larger scale in the future;

• Review of the appropriateness and clarity of the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and the level of coordination between them.  

• The effectiveness and sustainability of the partnerships developed;

• How have been cross-cutting issues (women’s empowerment and the environment, capacity-building of CSOs and local stakeholders, meaningful participation of local actors, evidence-based advocacy) mainstreamed in the project design and implementation

• Lessons learned and recommendations for any adjustments to enhance programme performance

• Policy gaps analysis between education policies on bilingual materials for Hmong ethnic students and its implementation in practices.

 

The evaluation team will:

• Develop and submit the proposal in English on the mid-term review including detailed timeline (for field work, reporting, dissemination), methodologies (qualitative/quantitative), necessary tools, budget etc. to get comments from project team;

• Study and review related documents

• Revise the detailed plan based on the discussion and agreements with project team;

• Conduct the field surveys in project area using participatory methodologies;

• Analyzing data (includes secondary data review, desk study and primary data);

• Write the draft mid-term evaluation report;

• Support to organize a workshop to comment on the draft report;

• Compile the comments to the draft report and send to the project team for final review and comments.

• Finalize the mid-term evaluation report (in Vietnamese and in English) and submit to the Project.

• Prepare the presentation for dissemination workshop

 

 

4. EVALUATION METHODS AND PROCESS

 

The mid-term evaluation will apply a participatory approach, which allows all relevant stakeholders and community members to be engaged in the process. This is to ensure that the mid-term evaluation reflexes fully the opinions of various partners involved in the project implementation. This evaluation includes the following proposed phases:

 

1. Desk study

Review the relevant project documents and reports; 

 

2. Interview with AEA managers and staff and related stakeholders

The evaluation team will conduct interviews with AEA team and implementing partner and other stakeholders to better understand the management and implementation of the project, the collaboration between AEA and implementing partners, etc.

 

3. Field work

The evaluation team can propose different methodologies and tools which may include:

• Field observations

• Interview:  open and semi-structured

• Group discussions (by mixed and focal groups)

• Meetings at different levels

• In-depth interview to relevant local stakeholders. 

 

4. Reporting

The consultants team will process the collected data to develop an evaluation report using appropriate data processing applications, following steps belows:

 

• The MTE team will submit the 1st draft report within five (5) working days upon from completion of the field work

• The team will participate in a have to send initial findings of the report to AEA, implementing partner and local skateholders to get their feedbacks and suggestions.

• Final report is to be submitted after five (5) working days after receiving the all comments and inputs on the draft report.

• The report should not exceed 30 pages (plus annexes) with following structure:

• Executive summary

• Project background

• Purpose of the evaluation

• Methodology

• Findings: project relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact of project activities, sustainability, cross-cutting issues, partnership with recommendations for improvement.                      

• Lessons learned: Assessment of attainment of indicators, operational and developmental lessons.               

• Conclusions and recommendations                          

• Annexes: proposal, detailed plan for field works/reporting/dissemination workshop, list of people met/interview, list of documents reviewed      

 

5. Dissemination of findings

The findings in the evaluation will be disseminated to the related stakeholders in a dissemination workshop.

 

 

5. DELIVERABLES

 

The MTE team is expected to provide:

• A final comprehensive mid-term evaluation report in English and Vietnamese

• Presentation of findings and recommendations for dissemination workshop

• A short policy brief on analysis of gaps between education policies on bilingual materials for Hmong minorities and its implementation in practice.

 

 

6. DURATION AND TIMELINE

 

Duration: The data collection will be carried out during the first 3 weeks of August 2017.  The final report is expected to deliver in mid of September 2017.

 

Timelife:

The mid-term evaluation is proposed to be conducted in maximum 20 days, including time for desk study, interview with AEA and implementing partners, field work, reporting and dissemination.

 

 

 

7. QUALIFICATION AND COMPETENCIES

The evaluation team should consist of one team leader and one member. They should have the following qualifications to effectively carry out the mid-term evaluation:

• At least 5 years of experience in conducting program/project evaluations

• At least 5 years of experience working in development sectors;

• Post graduate degree/ Bachelors degree in statistic, economics, development studies or relevant fields;

• Experience in project/program M&E is an advantage

 

 

8. HOW TO APPLY

Interested candidates are invited to send a complete application package in English to:  [email protected] [2] and cc: [email protected] [3] with subject “Consultancy for mid-term evaluation of EC project”, including:

 

• (1) an updated curriculum vitae

• (2) a proposal for the evaluation including outlined time, frameworks and detailed methodologies, logistic and others

• (3) expected budget for the evaluation (including consultancy fee and other reimbursable costs)

• Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

• Deadline for applications: 17 July 2017.

Job Details

Organisation Name: 

Aide et Action

Application Deadline: 

Mon, 2017-07-17