Partner for the Rapid Assessment at Schools

Request for Proposals: Rapid Assessment of School Facilities in Phu Tho, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An
Project title: Vietnam Integrated Deworming, Sanitation and Hygiene Project

1. Background

East Meets West (EMW) and Evidence Action are currently partnering with the Vietnamese government to implement a school-based deworming program in Phu Thi, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces. This program integrates school-based mass drug administrations (MDAs) of the deworming medication albendazole with hygiene education (including handwashing with soap).One of the program’s main objectives is to assess whether adding hygiene education to deworming can improve the latter’s success by reducing reinfection rates in children. It seeks to answer this question by conducting a randomized control trial (RCT) of deworming implemented as both a stand-alone intervention and one coupled with hygiene education.

Following program inception we identified three candidate hygiene education interventions based on different educational media and activities aiming to motivate children’s adoption of healthy hygiene practices. In order to determine which intervention or combination of interventions would be feasible for deployment at scale in a school setting in Vietnam, we conducted pre-testing among 15 schools in Phu Tho province in May 2015.

The pretest revealed an issue that requires further attention: availability of both soap and proper handwashing facilities in Vietnamese schools. The absence of these facilities in a significant number of schools poses risks to realizing the benefits of the hygiene interventions, and we feel compelled to obtain a more complete picture of the status of handwashing facilities and school facilities across the four provinces of focus for our program. The RCT described above will take place in Phú Th? province exclusively, but ultimately we must consider the status of hand-washing facilities in schools across all four provinces were we anticipate implementing a hygiene education intervention as part of the scaled-up deworming program.

This RFP seeks a partner to perform a rapid assessment of hand-washing and other school facilities across all four target provinces.

2. Survey Required

We require the school surveys to be implemented. The Partner will make visits to the randomly-selected schools to visually inspect the hand-washing and sanitation facilities as well as school facilities in the four target provinces (current estimates indicate 1751 schools for all 4 provinces), school surveys will be implemented to determine the status of hand-washing facilities and equipment at the schools. For all surveyed schools, the following data will be collected:

• availability of hand-washing facilities and sanitation facilities
  
  • sinks/taps
  • latrines/toilets

• condition of hand-washing facilities sanitation facilities
  
  • operational/broken
  • well-maintained/poorly maintained

• availability of soap
  
  • is soap available at hand-washing stations at all times?
  • is soap available at hand-washing stations at certain times of the day?

• availability of electricity and other school facilities
  
  • does school have electricity?
  • does school have projector and its screen?
  • If yes, how many projector/screen does the school have and their status of use?
  • If yes, is there an usable computer to attach to the projector?
  • Does school have a TV/VCD-player available?

3. School selection

The schools where these schools surveys will be implemented will be randomly-selected from across all four provinces by EMW and Evidence Action and the list will be provided to the firm. The random-selection is based on four individual sample sets, one for each province.

In total, 310 schools will be visited across the four provinces, with the provincial break-down as follows:

• 74 schools in Phu Tho
• 69 schools in Hoa Binh
• 86 schools in Thanh Hoa
• 81 schools in Nghe An

The schools where these schools surveys will be implemented will be randomly-selected by EMW and Evidence Action and the list will be provided to the firm.

4. Survey methodology

This is a quantitative survey, using quantitative methods of data collection.

5. Expected Timeline and Deliverables

Survey Protocol, Plan and Estimate Budget need to be submitted in English by 3 November, 2015

The Questionnaire should be provided by the Partner to East Meets West by 8 November 2015. East Meets West will cooperate with the Partner team to finalize the questionnaire that will be administered to each randomly selected school.

The school surveys should be conducted between 23 November – 4 December 2015.

The Partner should enter the data between: 5 – 10 December 2015

The final data set and report should be submitted to East Meets West by 14 December, 2015.

Survey Protocol, Plan and Estimate Budget need to be submitted to Nguyen Hong Nhung, email: [email protected]. Any questions about this RFP should be addressed in writing, in English, to Nguyen Hong Nhung at the above specified email.

The selected firm will be notified by East Meets West.