Background
Evaluation services for the Jielimishe Girls Education Challenge (GEC) Project, implemented by I Choose Life – Africa as Prime Partner and SoS Children’s Villages Kenya as Key Partner Organization.
Background to the GEC Programme and the Jielimishe GEC Project
GEC programme background:
• The Department for International Development (DFID) leads the UK’s work to end extreme poverty. DFID is tackling the global challenges of our time including poverty and disease, mass migration, insecurity and conflict. DFID’s work is building a safer, healthier, more prosperous world for people in developing countries and in the UK too.
• DFID is working to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Progress on girls’ education is critical to the achievement of these targets. SDGs 4 and 5 specifically relate to education and achieving gender parity. SDG 4 specifically notes ‘inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning’.
• Globally 31 million primary age girls, have never been to school . And the majority of these girls come from the poorest and most marginalised communities in the most disadvantaged locations, ethnic groups etc. Over the last 20 years primary enrolments for girls have improved along with boys but completion rates are equally low for both sexes. At the secondary level the differences between boys and girls participation rates really start to show. Significant disparities exist within countries, with the poorest girls from rural areas most severely subject to educational disadvantage – even at the primary level .
• The Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) is helping the world’s poorest girls improve their lives through education and supporting better ways of getting girls in school and ensuring they receive a quality of education to transform their future.
• PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and alliance partners have been contracted as the dedicated Fund Manager (FM) and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the GEC. This includes establishing the recipient tendering process, supporting bidders, sifting and scoring proposals, monitoring Value for Money (VfM) and making project funding recommendations for DFID approval. The FM also manages the relationships with the selected projects and oversees their Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning operations.
• Through the GEC, DFID provided £355m between 2012 and 2017 to the FM to disburse to 37 individual projects across 18 countries across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to help girl’s education. In 2016 the GEC Transition window has been set up with additional DFID funding to support the original GEC beneficiaries continue their journey through stages of education and further improve their learning
.
Jielimishe GEC Project background:
I Choose Life – Africa (ICL), through Jielimishe Girls’ Education Challenge Transition Project (GEC T), will be working with 10,123 marginalised girls from the marginalised communities in Laikipia, Meru and Mombasa Counties in Kenya. The five (5) year project funded by the UK Government through Department for International Development (DfID) will run from April 2017 as the start date to March 2022 as the end date. Building on the lessons learnt from Jielimishe GEC 1 the overall goal of GEC T will continue to improve the life chances of 10,123 marginalized girls (2,390 in primary school and 7,730 in secondary school) using a holistic approach to complete a cycle of education, transition to the next level including alternative pathways and demonstrate learning. Besides targeting girls as direct beneficiaries, the project will reach out to 3,190 boys in primary between grade 6 to 8 and 3,790 in secondary schools. Following the rich experience and vast understanding of the contextual barriers behind educational marginalisation for these girls, the potential that exists amongst them and their communities JGEC has put forth a design that would seek to empower the girl and her learning environment, with gender equality at the core, through strategic and focussed project interventions aimed at enabling the girls achieve even more.
In its endeavour to improve life chances for these girls, the project aims at achieving three key outcomes: 10,123 marginalised Girls supported by GEC with improved Learning; 10,123 Marginalised girls transitioning through key Education Pathways; and Enhanced sustainability in the quality of learning and transition in key education pathways. The five key project pre-conditions, otherwise referred to as Intermediate Outcomes, to achieving these outcomes are: Improved quality of teaching among teachers for enhanced curriculum Delivery; Improved attendance for 10,123 marginalised girls supported by GEC; Improved motivation of 10,123 marginalised girls to transition through key pathways; Improved Community support to girls’ education and transition through different pathways; Improved education management, governance and accountability for sustainable quality teaching and learning
The main contextual factors that influenced the project design included: the prevalent Gender Inequalities in the three communities that marginalise girls educationally, low household income that render caregivers unable to support girls learning and transition through different pathways; weak child protection at the community and school to safeguard girls and provide supportive environment for their education pursuit, limited men involvement in girls education coupled with low value of girls education and the boda boda riders menace of contributing to girls school drop-out due to pregnancies; fewer secondary school to accommodate the high numbers transitioning from primary as the current secondary schools can only accommodate up to 80%, thus 20% miss secondary school opportunities; Low value of TVET education thus caregivers unwilling to support girls access TVET education as an alternative pathway; and last but not least the distances to and from schools that affect girls’ willingness to extend their reading time in the evening, thus opt to go home early as boys remain behind to study.
Jielimishe GEC T theory of change is based on the understanding of the contextual barriers affecting transition of girls in the three select counties. The ToC is hinged on three key desired endings; Girls retained in school and complete a full cycle of education and demonstrate improved learning; girls successfully transition through the three key transition points and finally sustainability of the quality of teaching and transition through key education pathways. Innovations and new activities have been proposed to facilitate quality learning and transition of girls from through the key education pathways. These activities borrow from lessons learnt in implementing GEC 1 and literature reviewed in the course of developing the Theory of change. The activities put forth are Transition point specific where the assumption is that when these activities are effectively implemented in those specific transition points (Primary to Secondary; Primary to TVET and Secondary to TVET/Higher learning) girls will be facilitated to transition to the next level.
Professional Skills and Qualifications
Qualifications: bidders are required to clearly identify and provide CVs for all those proposed in the Evaluation Team, clearly stating their roles and responsibilities for this evaluation. Please note that if the enumeration is to be sub-contracted, the evaluator will be ultimately responsible for the enumerators they are subcontracting to.
The proposed evaluation person / team should include the technical expertise and practical experience required to deliver the scope of work and evaluation outputs, in particular, with regards to:
• Evaluation design: the team should include skills and expertise required to design, plan and conduct mixed-method impact evaluation using quasi-experimental techniques;
• Skills in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, drawing findings from multiple sources and handling potential contradictions between data sets.
• Relevant subject matter knowledge and experience: knowledge and experience required on conducting research with children, the education sector, disability and gender to ensure that the evaluation design and research methods are as relevant and meaningful as possible given the aims and objectives of the project and the context in which it is being delivered;
• Evaluation management: manage a potentially large-scale and complex evaluation and research process from end-to-end, including conducting and reporting a baseline study and final project evaluation report
• Primary research: gender-sensitive design, management and implementation of primary quantitative and qualitative research in potentially challenging project environments, such as fragile and conflict affected states – this includes the design of longitudinal household panel surveys, EGRA /EGMA tests, in-depth interviews, focus groups, etc.;
• Country experience: it is particularly important that the team has the appropriate country knowledge /experience and language proficiency required to conduct the research required;
• Information management: design and manage sex- and marginalisation – disaggregated data and information systems capable of handling large datasets for MEL purposes;
• Statistical analysis: a range of statistical modelling and analysis of impact data; highly proficient user of: SPSS or STATA; and qualitative data analysis techniques, including the use of software e.g. ATLAS.ti, NVivo or equivalent where needed;
• VfM assessment of education projects: education economics expertise to conduct cost benefit analysis and cost effectiveness analysis as part of the assessment of the project’s VfM; and
• Safety considerations: Ensuring the whole evaluation process adhere to best practice for research with children including the implementation of child protection policy and procedures to ensure safety of participants. Note that all bidders are expected to be able to show that they have a child protection policy in place to safeguard children that the research team would come into contact with through the research activities.
Day–to–day project management of the evaluation will be the responsibility of Mr Mike Mutungi, the Project Director Jielimishe GEC and Chief Executive Officer I Choose Life – Africa.
Deliverables and Schedule
Project deliverables: the main deliverables for this project are as follows:
• Inception report: setting out the design of the MEL strategy and plan and associated planning, logistics, quality assurance, child protection measures and risk management information including gender analysis.
• Baseline study report: design, conduct and submit a baseline study that describes the initial conditions (before the start of the project) against which progress can be measured or comparisons made to show the effects and impacts of the project in the final project evaluation report. A final report structure will be provided by the FM through Jielimishe GEC Project
• Midline project evaluation report: design, conduct and submit a midline evaluation report that assesses the effectiveness, impact and VfM of the project at the midline point.
• Final project evaluation report: design, conduct and submit a final project evaluation report that assesses the effectiveness, impact and VfM of the project.
Report requirements: all reports should be submitted in electronic form and should be submitted in English.
The Evaluation Team will be required to provide face-to-face presentations in-country of all deliverables as an integral part of the submission process.
The Evaluation Team will be expected to provide a fully ‘cleaned-up’ dataset in SPSS, Stata or SAS file format accompanied by the code used to carry out analysis and a variable codebook.
Detailed work plan: bidders are required to provide a detailed work plan incorporating all relevant tasks and milestones from start to finish of the evaluation study.
Project milestones: bidders are required to include in their detailed work plans the milestones set out in the link provided below
For more information on the background, objectives, deliverables and schedule. Please click the link below to access a detailed Terms of Reference (TOR). http://ichooselife.global/Careers/#
HOW TO APPLY:
Interested applicants should submit a detailed technical proposal on how to best deliver this within the specified timelines and budget. Applications should be submitted by or on 31st July 2017 to:
Email: kombe@ichooselife.or.ke
cc dennis@ichooselife.or.ke
enyamwaro@ichooselife.or.ke
Contact Person:
Dennis Ratemo, Program Manager
Tel: 4442931/2/3, Cell: 0725-864-689. http://ichooselife.global/Careers/#