Deadline: 14-May-21
UNESCO is calling proposals for the Global Education Monitoring Report Series to synthesize, analyze, and clearly present the best available data, evidence, and research to explain progress and differences in education and to make recommendations that stimulate reflection and dialogue and thereby improve policymaking.
The Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report has introduced a regional report series, which explores the theme of the global report in a particular region through partnerships. In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, the GEM Report is proposing an adaptation of the regional report concept, the Spotlight report series, which will focus on the theme of universal basic education completion and achievement of foundational learning skills.
The Spotlight series is a new partnership between the GEM Report and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). It will conduct new analysis on the current situation and on the steps taken towards universal basic education completion and foundational learning in Africa to ensure this issue is on top of national and continental policy makers’ agendas. Over the next three years, the Spotlight series will cover a dozen countries per year: of these, four focus countries (one per region: West, Central, South and East) will be covered in-depth, while eight countries (two per region) will offer additional insights.
Goals
The Spotlight series has two goals:
- Synthesize, analyze and clearly present comparative knowledge on challenges and solutions to achieving universal basic education completion and foundational learning in Africa as a basis to support regional peer learning mechanisms and national, regional and global accountability mechanisms.
- Support national and regional coalitions to use this comparative knowledge to move national education systems, plans, policies and budgets – but also international support mechanisms – in the direction of achieving universal basic completion and foundational learning in Africa.
Aims
The aim of this report is to:
- stimulate an informed and strategic country-led policy dialogue with stakeholders and development partners that leads to tangible actions to address identified issues; and
- be an input to the regional report on basic education completion and foundational learning in Africa.
Objectives
The objective of this work is to:
- engage in consultations
- collect data and other evidence;
- undertake fieldwork research; and
- produce a brief and accessible report on progress towards universal basic education completion and foundational learning outcomes in specified country
Funding Information
- Budget breakdown: Proposals should be under US$50,000.
Outputs
The Spotlight series will deliver three outputs:
- Easy-to-use, evidence-based analysis of selected countries’ efforts to achieve universal basic education completion and foundational learning outcomes:
- four country reports per year; and
- a regional synthesis report with an emphasis on cross-country and over-time comparisons, drawing on the four country reports and eight more country profiles.
- Support to coalitions and advocacy mechanisms at national level to hold governments and partners to account for the achievement of universal basic education completion and foundational learning outcomes.
- Support to peer learning mechanisms at regional and continental level to help prioritize actions for the achievement of universal basic education completion and foundational learning outcomes.
Methodology and deliverables
It is envisaged that the activities will be undertaken over 8-10 weeks, leading to the following deliverables:
- Revision to the common tools and protocols, where applicable.
- A stakeholder mapping through the completion of a stakeholder mapping tool.
- An interim report, covering literature review and analysis, and interrogation of data behind plans, policies, strategies and budgets to determine priorities and issues.
- An initial workshop to validate analysis, receive insights, reach consensus on priority issues, hold collaborative discussions to generate hypotheses on barriers and identify possible solutions and intervention areas for validation and exploration during fieldwork.
- A draft report, once fieldwork is completed.
- A validation workshop, where findings are presented to stakeholders.
- A final report (in Word and/or PowerPoint) incorporating feedback from the validation workshop.
Requirements
The research team will consist of 3-4 members. A Team Leader will have overall responsibility for stakeholder engagement, workshop facilitation and the final report. S/he should be a respected education practitioner able of leading stakeholder engagement. The other team members will support the process at different levels and will need to have strong analytical and reporting writing skills and considerable experience of facilitation to ensure that their own personal opinions and biases do not influence the responses of stakeholders.
They need to have the ability to be ‘impartial observers’, listening to and respecting stakeholders whose views, opinions and actions they may disagree with. Interested firms should submit a 3-page proposal with the following information:
- Details of project team including the position and qualifications of team leader and other team members.
- Description of how in-country research capacity and knowledge will be leveraged in order to ensure relevance and buy-in.
- Description of how relevant stakeholders will be engaged throughout the process such that their policy priority needs are appropriately addressed.
- Description of past relevant policy-oriented research experience in Africa, in particular Rwanda, Senegal, Congo DR, and Mozambique.
- Details of potential ethical issues in the relation to proposed research and the steps that will be taken to ensure ethical standards
For more information, visit https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/Spotlight-Africa-RFP