THE WORLD BANK GROUP has floated a tender for Diagnostic of Inclusive Education Resource Center Pilots. The project location is Ethiopia and the tender is closing on 23 Aug 2018. The tender notice number is 1258715, while the TOT Ref Number is 25879752. Bidders can have further information about the Tender and can request the complete Tender document by Registering on the site.

Expired Tender

Procurement Summary

Country : Ethiopia

Summary : Diagnostic of Inclusive Education Resource Center Pilots

Deadline : 23 Aug 2018

Other Information

Notice Type : Tender

TOT Ref.No.: 25879752

Document Ref. No. : 1258715

Competition : ICB

Financier : World Bank (WB)

Purchaser Ownership : -

Tender Value : Refer Document

Purchaser's Detail

Purchaser : THE WORLD BANK GROUP
Gelila Woodeneh Sr. Communications Officer Africa Avenue (Bole Road) Addis Ababa Tel +(251) 115176000
Ethiopia
Email :gwoodeneh@worldbank.org

Tender Details

Expression of Interest are invited for Diagnostic of Inclusive Education Resource Center Pilots in Ethiopia.

TERMS OF REFERENCE
Diagnostic of Inclusive Education Resource Center Pilots in Ethiopia

I. BACKGROUND

All children have the right to be educated regardless of their gender, location, religion and special educational needs/disabilities. That said, many children with disabilities in Ethiopia are not integrated in the education system. According to the Education Statistics Annual Abstract, 243, 155 children (44% girls and 56% boys) with identified special educational needs were enrolled in Grades 1-12. The majority of these children (224, 186) were studying in primary school. Overall, only 8.1 percent of children identified as having special educational needs were enrolled in primary schools, and 1.5 percent in secondary education in 2015/16, implying that significant progress needs to be made in order to the achieve universal and inclusive education.

Multi-donor Ethiopia General Education Quality Improvement Project II financed top-up to the school grants disbursed to all regions with a view to promote creation of a more inclusive learning environment. School grants for children with special needs constituted 1% top-up to regional allocations in 2015/16; 2% in 2016/17; and 4% in 2017/18. Although it was reported by the Regional Education Bureaus (REBs) that the amount allocated is too little to cover costs needed by the schools accommodating children with special educational needs, this financing proved to be instrumental in raising the awareness for special educational needs and helping regions implement different strategies to strengthen their inclusive education programs. For example, in the Afar region, the funding was used to invite medical experts to assess the level of hearing and visual impairment before making a decision on which hearing or visual aids are needed to be provided to students. Other regions used the available funding to provide learning materials to the students with special educational needs. The additional school grant for children with special educational needs also raised awareness among parents, teachers, and school leaders.

The Education Sector Development Program V for 20162020 (ESDP V) underlines the importance of increasing the provision of inclusive education in mainstream schools, including in the one-year school readiness program aimed at 6-year-olds and delivered in primary school compounds. The equity goal translates into specific targets on inclusive education e.g. creation of inclusive education resource centers (IERCs) in mainstream schools. By 2020 the Government of Ethiopia aims to establish a total of 800 IERCs across the country (ESDP V, 2015/162019/20). Recently, 113 IERCs have been organized on a pilot basis in cluster center mainstream schools, which serve 5-6 mainstream schools (overall, there are over 38, 000 primary and secondary schools organized into the network of over 7, 000 clusters in Ethiopia).

These pilots have been supported by the development partners and have shown positive results in promoting inclusion. For example, during the period 2013 2017 the Finnish Government supported the project Enhancing Capacity of Teacher Education and Resource Centers in Ethiopia, which supported creation of IERCs in three target regions (Addis Ababa, Oromiya and Southern Nation Nationalities and People Region-SNNPR). In addition, regions have aso established a number of IERCs. Currently, there are 113 resource centers, including 49 in Amhara; 32 in SNNPR; 12 in Tigray; 6 in Addis Ababa; 6 in Oromia; 5 in Harari; 2 in Benishangul-Gumuzl and 1 in Dire Dawa. Generally speaking, IERC is a relatively new concept in Ethiopia and no diagnostics has been made so far to identify cost-effective, scalable and sustainable options for transformation of cluster center mainstream schools into inclusive education resource centers.

II. OBJECTIVE OF THE CONSULTANCY AND SCOPE OF WORK

There are many challenges in supporting children with special educational needs in mainstream schools in Ethiopia including physical barriers, resource constraints and low capacity to support inclusive education (including lack of awareness and skills on how to intervene and to provide support). Children with disabilities often face barriers due to negative social attitudes and lack of support in classrooms and in the community. International practice shows that Inclusive Education Resource Centers can play an important role in supporting learners, parents, teachers and schools. They also can play a role in supporting surrounding communities in creating and maintaining an inclusive learning environment.

The objective of this Consultancy is to conduct a diagnostic of existing inclusive education resource centers in cluster centre mainstream schools of Ethiopia. The specific objectives of this Consultancy include the following:
Make a diagnostic of existing IERCs and identify cost-effective, scalable and sustainable options for transformation of cluster center schools into inclusive education resource centers;
Based on the findings, map out implementation plan for scale-up of IERCs under Ethiopia General Education Quality Improvement Program for Equity [i.e. creation of 700 IERCs in cluster center mainstream schools which are to serve about 3, 400 mainstream schools in the clusters];
Design M&E arrangements to help track investments and assess performance of resource centers in relation to provision of inclusive education in mainstream schools.

The study should cover four domains of inputs, processes, outcomes, and contextual factors of IERCoperation in mainstream schools. Though not an exhaustive list, the study should include the following aspects:
Current level of IERCs functionality and acomplishments to date:
Process of identification of students with special educational needs; number of students who benefit disaggregated by gender and types of special educational needs, types of services being provided ; accessibility of IERCs, the school environment, including leadership of the cluster schools being supported;
Staffing and functioning of IERCs : staffing numbers and structure, roles and resposnibilities of different staff members, their educational and professional qualifications, type of training received, their awareness and utilization of appropriate pedagogical approaches to inclusive education; availability and use of low-tech to high-tech assistive technology; relevance of the support to the target group; type of collaboration with key stakeholders - such as, specific ways in which the IERC staff work with mainstream school teachers, the specific direct support provided to children with special educational needs, the kind of engagement underatken with parents of children with special educational needssustainability of IERCs upon completion of the donor-funded projects (financing and sustainability of the inclusive education activities); alternatives to the IERCs, if any.
Challenges the IERCs currently face in delivering their objectives of inclusive education
Opportunities which are in place and can be built upon; and
Best practices and factors supporting successful functioning of IERCs leading to the participation of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools.

The study should use a wellarticulated and coherent methodology. The research will avail itself of both primary and secondary sources, through desk research and field surveys as applicable, and will provide detailed, updated, relevant and reliable quantitative and qualitative data. This means that the Consultant will be responsible for gathering, with the support of properly trained and briefed enumerators, reliable and comparable roubust quantitative and qualitative data. The study should not only rely on anecdotal information but be developed using a clear and transparent mixed methods approach. The study should also include cost analysis.

The Consultant will work closely with the teams of the Ministry of Education of Ethiopia and the World Bank in the course of implementation of this assignment.

III. DELIVERABLES AND TIMELINE

The selected consulting firm will be expected to deliver the following outputs to the following timeframes:
Inception report presenting work-plan and schedule outlining how the tasks listed above will be completed. The inception report shall outline the proposed conceptual framework and analytical approach including proposed quantitiatve and qualitative data collection instruments in electronic format (with a basic instruction guide to provide operational definitions for the data to be gathered), as well as staff input time, travel and consultation plans, and delivery timeframes;
Initial data collection report (with clean datasets in STATA or SPSS format and a detailed presentation of the qualitative data gathered);
Progress reports and presentations the selected firm shall deliver a progress report and make a presentation at least once between approved inception report and final draft report.
Draft report. The draft final report of the work is to be presented in English to the research team in Addis Ababa and the World Bank not later than April 20 2019 (with full analysis and findings based on the research themes provided above). The report will be accompanied by a PowerPoint summarizing key findings and recommendations.
Final report. The consultants will finalize the draft report and PowerPoint deck based on feedback provided by the World bank, MoE, and other consultants and deliver final revised versions by end-May 2019; Organize a workshop to present the final report findings in May 2019.

The final output of the consultancy will be a comprehensive Report produced in English. Quantitative and qualitative data (these might be in comprehensive extracts) collected during the Study, and their analysis, should be included in t

Documents

 Tender Notice