Terms of Reference (TOR) to Study the Situations of Work Ready Now (WRN) Trainee Graduates of TVETs in Six regions of POTENTIAL
1. Background of POTENTIAL
USAID’s Building the Potential of Youth (POTENTIAL) Project has been under implementation for the last about four years in six regions of Afar, Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, Somali and Tigray with proposed strategies of responding to unemployed and underemployed youths’ capacity needs. It also aimed at leveraging existing youth development activities, and contributing towards improving the quality and accountability of local training and business service providers by ensuring that existing entities work in consortium. These strategic focuses are planned towards full realization via three major Intermediate Results
2. Specific information/background regarding the assignment
The skills’ mismatch, the gap between graduates’ job skills and the demands of the job market, has become a central challenge. To do this, match skills with needs, requires educators, education administrators, and government policies to have the ability to align with markets and market trends with achieved levels of skill sets. There is a lack of clarity on the context of the problem or the factors contributing to this mismatch and the huge gap in how these skills mismatch can be bridged between the world of work and the education system go parallel.
Soft skill is the most required skill besides technical knowledge to compete in the job market and sustain job at the industrial global market. Unfortunately, most TVET graduates were not equipped with the employability skills needed by the labor market. In preparing graduates for real world challenges, there is a need for broad-based curriculum that develops student leadership skills, critical thinking skills and technical expertise to enable them succeed in the workplace and in their life. Soft skills are critical in building communication skills that are critical in forging relationship and constructive engagement in the world of work. Inclusion of soft skill modules into higher education institution can lead to constructive engagement among students, enhancing the culture of dialogue, trust and understanding.
Realizing this gap, POTENTIAL, as one of its intervention strategies, aims to increase capacities of local training and business service providers (including TVETs, FTCs, CSTCs, and others) to integrate soft skill trainings in to their training delivery programs. For this to happen, POTENTIAL considered Technical and Vocational Education and Training Institutes (TVETs) as major partners in the implementation of its goals and objectives.
POTENTIAL has seen the importance of working with TVETs right from its inception.
Based on this, the Activity introduced as Work Ready Now! (WRN!), a short soft skill training, to boost the employability of the TVET graduates after their completion of their formal technical education. In the long term, POTENTIAL would like to ensure the integration of the soft skills of WRN in the TTIs’ curricula thereby ultimately make them part of the national curriculum
So far, a total of 30 TVETs in all the six regions have been partnering with the Activity to introduce WRN! soft skill training since the start of the partnerships. As a result, a total of 1,163 TVET graduate youth have received the soft skill training through TVET instructors who themselves have attended TOTs to be able to cascade it to the students.
This study aims to assess employment outcome of the graduates who have passed through the WRN training as compared to the graduates who were not addressed by the soft skill training.
The information will be collected through a questionnaire with a dominance of “closed questions” (categories for response provided) and some open questions (like job title, economic sector, work tasks). Qualitative data will also be gathered to triangulate the findings of the quantitative results.
The survey is expected to start in October 2018 with the sampled graduates of the year 2016/17. All graduates of this cohort who attended the WRN will be included in the sampling frame
3. Overall Objective
The overall objective of the study is to trace the selected TVET graduates and assess the effectiveness, relevance and impact of the WRN! Training in helping them find suitable livelihood options (Self Employment, Wage employment)
4. Specific Objectives
a) Trace the selected TVET graduates who have passed through the work readiness training of POTENTIAL (WRN!) and get insight into graduates’ experiences before and after POTENTIAL’s training.
b) Assess the overall impact of the WRN! training in line with the overall objective of the TVETs
c) Assess the prevalence of employment among female training participants as compared to their male counter parts
d) Assess the perception of employers towards their gender preference at the time of employment
e) Assess the experience of former female trainees with regard to finding employment vis-à-vis their sex.
f) Establish how the soft skills and knowledge acquired by the WRN training influenced the work habit, behavior towards employment and career of the graduates in furthering their career
g) Document success stories from alumni that identify the value addition of POTENTIAL’s WRN training
5. Scope of Work
The scope of work for the consultancy assignment is as follows:
· Assess the employment status of the TVET students who have attended the WRN! Training learn the contribution of the soft skill training of the alumni in terms of securing employment both self and wage employment
· Assess the relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of the knowledge gained through the WRN training program through measures of behavior, attitude e.g. saving habit
· Provide an overview of opinions of graduates on their training in light of their employment experiences
· Obtain the views and opinions of employers on the impact, quality and relevance of the WRN! training program
· Assess graduate satisfaction level relating to the WRN! training they attended
· Identify the present job status of the graduates and the extent to which their jobs are appropriate to their level of education.
· Determine the extent to which graduates use knowledge, attitudes and soft skills acquired during their stay with POTENTIAL’s WRN trainings
· Establishment of co-operation/contacts between POTENTIAL and its alumni and open up possible sources for collaboration.
· Collect information on employment patterns of beneficiaries.
· Document success stories of some of the former trainees.
· Generate lessons learnt for POTENTIAL to inform future interventions.
· Make concrete conclusions based on the analysis on the impact of POTENTIAL’s training/interventions.
· Collect information from the TVET officials and assess effectiveness of WRN! training from their perspective.
Specific Activities
The consultant will:
· Develop a work plan for undertaking the assignment in consultation with the staff of POTENTIAL
· Conduct a literature review of appropriate documentation on the project to familiarize with the project.
· Develop, present and agree with the staff of POTENTIAL on methodology for implementing the study that spells clearly the data collection instruments and the indicators they measure, the data collection approach that includes an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses, guidelines for data collection and the robustness of the data collected, and the analytical approach that clearly measures impact.
· Collect reliable data in the field from former trainees and their employers
· Analyze data, compile and present draft report
· Present the findings of the study to POTENTIAL and produce the final report to incorporate comments and suggestions from the staff and stakeholders
6. Roles and Responsibilities of POTENTIAL
· Review and approve the work plan, methodology and instruments for the tracer study
· Provide relevant review documents (i.e. MOU, reports work Plan and other relevant documentation to be reviewed)
· Facilitate access to study areas including the staff of TVETS, access to students’ database, communication with study participants and their employers
· Meet the relevant costs related to this consultancy as agreed and stipulated in the contract
7. Deliverables
· Detailed work plan with milestones.
· Inception report 5 days after the inception meeting
· Documentation of the key lessons for POTENTIAL
· Clear methodology: tracer study instruments and indicator measurement, analytical approach and robustness check approach
· Draft report and presentation to POTENTIAL
· Final report, incorporating suggestions and recommendations (at the end of the consultancy assignment one week after draft report presentation).
· Submit all data files in printed and electronic format and completed questionnaires
8. Plan of Work / Duration
It is anticipated that this consultancy will be undertaken in September 2018 with an effective input of 60 man-days. However, the lead consultant will prepare a detailed work plan that will form part of the contract
9. Qualification and experience of the consultant
The consultant (principal investigator) should possess advanced degree in social studies or related fields with minimum working experience of 10 years as a professional survey data researcher, management consultant with proven experience in education research, market research, tracer studies and demonstrated survey research publication record. She/he should have knowledge of youth development and issues related to TVET education. The consultant should have proven experience in conducting impact assessment and analysis.