Term of Reference for ICT based Social Accountability System for quality early childhood & basic primary education; and assess relevance, effectiveness, efficiency impact & sustainability of project in Ada’a Woreda
1. INTRODUCTION
Save the Children is the world leading independent organization for children. Our vision is a world in which every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation. Our mission is to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives. Save the Children UK has been supporting Child Rights Governance Works, specifically ICT based social accountability or breakthrough project since 2016. Save the Children is implementing the project with RATSON: Women, Youth and Children Development Program, one of its partners, in Ada’a district of Oromia region.
The ICT Based Social Accountability Breakthrough Project aims to pilot and test an innovative ICT based accountability system in order to improve quality early childhood and basic primary education for children. The project is implemented with active participation of children, parents, educators, government officials in transparency, access to information and accountability in education governance in 16 target schools in Ada’a district from Jan 2016 to Dec 2018. The project focuses on designing ICT system, empowering children, building capacity of educators and government officials, applying social accountability in integration with ICT systems to facilitate education service monitoring and reporting by children, and scaling up of ICT based social accountability project into health and WASH sectors.
The project is planned for three years from 2016-2018, and has set objectives which feeds “monitoring and demanding children’s rights, with children”, CRG strategic objective 1.
Overall Objective of the Project: By the end of 2018, Save the Children and Ratson will contribute to improved quality early childhood and basic primary education for children through the use of digital technology based social accountability mechanisms, by involving different Stakeholders (children, parents and educators) in transparency and accountability towards enhancing district level primary education governance.
At the end of the project period the following objectives are expected to be achieved due to the execution of this project.
Specific Objective 1: 16 child groups in 16 intervention schools are empowered regarding their rights and entitlements to quality education and able to monitor and report on the status of education service delivery to district education officials and other stakeholders.
Specific Objective 2: Social accountability and digital technology system to monitor early childhood and basic primary education service delivery and improve quality of education is tested and adopted by Ada’a district education office.
Specific Objective 3: Education service providers and Ada'a district education officials integrated children in monitoring education services and school budget as well as other essential services that are important for children's development, and involve children in decision making processes
Specific Objective 4: ICT based social accountability system to improve quality early childhood and primary education advocated at district, zonal and regional levels
Our organization is seeking the services of a qualified organization /consultancy company/ to carry out the final project evaluation.
This end-term evaluation will be conducted to evaluate ICT Based Social Accountability System for quality early childhood and basic primary education the breakthrough project that has been supported by Save the Children UK fund. The final evaluation will be conducted at the end of a project that describe in an objective way what has happened, why and with what result: By using specific evaluation criteria (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability) and specific evaluation principles. The evaluation has to be analytical, systematic, reliable, issue-oriented, user-driven, useful, timely, and independent. The survey instruments shall be designed in a way it will cover the above evaluation criterion.
2. OBJECTIVE
The general objective of this assignment is to conduct final evaluation of the project named ICT Based Social Accountability System for quality early childhood and basic primary education; and assess relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of the project in Ada’a woreda.
3. Evaluation Criteria
a) Relevance:
The extent to which the project is consistent with, and supportive of, the policy and program framework within which the project is placed, and also the extent to which the objectives of the project are consistent with beneficiaries’ requirement and needs. The consultant needs collect data and track the progress of the pre-defined indicators from the baseline data to date.
Assess the level of stakeholder involvement in the project (including children, community, education service providers, higher government officials and others). The views of children and other stakeholders on the relevance of the ICT based social accountability in enhancing children’s meaningful participation on issues impacting their lives at school, community and government structures levels and recommend on whether children’s and other stakeholders’ involvement were appropriate for achieving goals of the project.
Assess relevance of integrating ICT (digital system) to the social accountability process to the achievement of project objectives.
b) Effectiveness:
The extent to which the project objectives and results achieved (including delivery of outputs). Make comparison against what planned.
What have been the major achievements of the project in relation to the stated objectives? Describe what the original plan was, so that the change relative to expectations at the start becomes clear (more change or less change than expected?) What made the achievements happen? Assess how the achievements came about: what were the key processes and activities leading to it? The number & types of issues of children raised, and how the service providers and higher government officials addressed these issues. Why can the project claim that the achievements were a result of the ICT based social accountability project (or at least the project activities contributed to it)?
Identify and describe children’s priorities/issues identified by children, raised and presented to the local government officials, which issues have been incorporated in sectoral plans and programs, and which services are improved as a result of the intervention.
To what extent has the ICT systems and SA tools been integrated and used effectively to assess and service quality and budget, and to influence improvements? Include also qualitative evidence e.g. service improvements that resulted from the intervention based on documentations of the project; opinions on the project’s effectiveness based on impressions and interviews with target groups, partners, governments, etc.
Identify how many children benefited from this project, and how many stakeholders have been involved in comparison to targets set by the project.
Identify any exceptional and/or unplanned experiences/achievements of the project e.g. case studies, stories, and best practices.
c) Efficiency:
This is to measure the objectives of the project achieved in an economical way.
Your comment on the ability of ICT based social accountability to leverage investment in children.
d) Impact
Identify which sector government offices have established systems to engage children and other community members in the budgeting process; number and types of issues raised by children and considered by sector government offices in planning and implementation of their plans and programs, and how this has benefited children.
Does the project contribute to attaining overall project objective; i.e. improved quality early childhood and basic primary education for children?
What has changed, how significant was the change, for whom (be specific about vulnerable children), and for how many beneficiaries (specify children, adults and service providers addressed directly and indirectly)?
e) Sustainability
Are the positive effects (sustainability of attitude/ and behavior change, sustainability of use of digital systems, and sustainability of improvements in quality of ECCE and primary education?) of the Social Accountability project sustainable?
To what extent would the positive effects (benefits) of the project remain after project end? What factors will enable this and what mechanisms are in place to ensure continuity in the intervention schools?
4. Scope of the Final Evaluation
Time: the End Term Evaluation will cover the implementation of the project funded by SCUK starting from the year 2016 and until end of Dec. 2018.
Geographic Scope: The project implemented in 16 target primary schools in Ada’a woreda with some zonal level involvements. The End Term Review will cover the implementation of the project in Ada’a woreda.
5. METHODOLOGY
The final Evaluation will conduct in a participatory manner through a combination of processes including a review of the key project documentation, questionnaires, focus group discussions, and interview with project stakeholders, field observations, service assessment, etc. The consultant expected to develop a concise methodology both qualitative and quantitative. The methodology should clearly articulate the research design (compatible with the project baseline and midline results evaluations, which can provide to the consultant upon request), methodology, tools, work plan, schedule and budget to carry out the assignment.
Ethical procedures should be integral part of the study design and where appropriate, child friendly approach should employ where needed. The consultant should adhere to procedures like informed consent, anonymity, Save the Children’s child safeguarding policy and code of conduct, and others.
The methodology should include:
- A concise scope of work to undertake a robust evaluation that meets the objectives and evaluation criteria indicated in this Terms of Reference.
- A strategy on fieldwork for Focus Group Discussion (FGD), Key Informant Interviews, and interviews with targeted communities, service providers, and local authorities in the sampled Woredas.
- The methodology to be used to conduct the evaluation, including sampling at least 9 schools out of 16 target schools.
- The appropriate sampling techniques and formula to determine the number of informants.
Methods may include interviews with targeted stakeholders, FDGs with the community representatives (including service users: women, Youth, Children, PWHIV, persons with disabilities, elderly, socially excluded). The other key stakeholders (i.e. service providers, sector officials, regional, woreda and kebele administrators, including Finance and Economic Development, elected council members, NGOs and private sector businesses, woreda and kebele social accountability councils (SACs), service improvement monitoring groups ( if any) etc.).
Time Frame
The End Term Evaluation shall finalize in a period of one month (30 calendar days), in November and December 2018.
6. OUTPUT/DELIVERABLES
The main outputs are expected from this assignment:
a) Inception report:
An inception report should submit not later that one week after signing agreement of the assignment and before starting primary data collection. It shall highlight any deviations from the original technical proposal, justify the changes adequately, as well as get approval from SCI’s CRG. The inception report should contain methodology, work plan, the detailed time schedule and all other organizational matters for the field mission.
b) Regular face to face and phone reporting
The consultant should report on the progress made compared to the plan. Any difficulties encountered should communicate to SCI’s CRG immediately.
c) Draft Report
A draft report shall produce and submit to SCI’s CRG. The report follows a chapter format, which includes a summary, background, literature review, research methodology, key findings, lessons learned, conclusions, recommendations, and all other topics as described in this Terms of Reference. The applicant will submit a draft report of maximum 40 pages excluding annexes to SCI’s CRG and make a clear PowerPoint Presentation in person to validate the findings.
d) Final Report
A final report shall produce within one week after the submission of the draft report. The final report should be concise and shall submit in two hard copies and a soft/electronic copy. The clean dataset annexed to the report (hard copy and soft copy). The report should be concise in its findings and follow the above mentioned report outline. It must incorporate:
High quality data and analysis from individual interviewees and focus group discussions.
Present status, observations, gaps, key findings and recommendations for future interventions, including suitable implementation methodology.
7. Responsibility of the consultant
Specific responsibilities of the applicant include the following:
· Get approval of the inception proposal within seven calendar days of contract agreement and get approval from SC program focal person.
· Review of secondary documents including project documents;
· Develop evaluation instruments including questionnaires, service assessment checklists, qualitative checklist that can be used to interview key informants and FGDs, etc.
· Use enumerators, interviewers and supervisor that have a solid record of conducting evaluations;
· Train enumerators and interviewers for the field work;
· Organize all field logistics (transportation, accommodation, appointments etc.);
· Conduct the final evaluation based on the agreed inception proposal. Collect data using agreed data collection tools; enter data in the SPSS database (recent version); Verify/clean SPSS dataset, and qualitative data analysis system; analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data’s.
· Prepare and present draft report on the final evaluation to the CRG team of SCI for validation
· Prepare and submit final report of the final evaluation.
· The applicant consultant expected to provide the details of study/ survey methodologies based on the project objectives and goal on their technical proposals.
· If selected for the job, the consultant should also prepare an inception report that highlights the scopes, methods, tools, report contents, etc. of the final evaluation. Before embarking on the fieldwork, CRG of SCI and the consultant should agree on the tools to be used for data collection and analysis.
The consultant is responsible to hire his support team in the ways he finds fit for the quality of work we demand of him/her and Save the Children is not responsible for the cost this incurs. She/he is also responsible to retake any or part of the work if submitted below the required quality at his or her own expense. Save the Children shall not pay for all or any part of the work done below the required quality.
The consultant is responsible to complete the final evaluation and submit all deliverables in 30 days from signing of the agreement.
8. Responsibility of Save the Children
9. Qualification and experience of the consultants
Local individual consultants expected to have:
· Very good knowledge of ICT based social accountability, transparency and accountability
· Excellent analytical skills (qualitative and quantitative)
· Excellent SPSS skills
o Previous relevant experience of working with Save the Children International preferably in ICT based social accountability or CRG thematic Program
o Demonstrable excellence in meeting deadline without compromising the quality of the deliverables
10. Evaluation Criteria
The proposals submitted will review based on the following scoring criteria
Component | 100% |
Technical Proposal | 60% |
| 15% |
| 10% |
| 10% |
| 10% |
| 15% |
Financial Proposal | 40% |
Total | 100% |
Qualification and experience of the consultants
Local individual consultants expected to have:
· Very good knowledge of ICT based social accountability, transparency and accountability
· Excellent analytical skills (qualitative and quantitative)
· Excellent SPSS skills
o Previous relevant experience of working with Save the Children International preferably in ICT based social accountability or CRG thematic Program
o Demonstrable excellence in meeting deadline without compromising the quality of the deliverables
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