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International Consultancy – Digital Learning Specialist, Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Nairobi
Job no: 563326
Position type: Consultant
Location: Kenya Division/Equivalent: Nairobi Regn’l(ESARO)
School/Unit: Regional Services Div (ESAR), Nairobi
Department/Office: Reg Serv – Prog Section, Nairobi Regn’l
Categories: Education
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.
Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.
And we never give up.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
Title of Assignment
Digital Learning Specialist – Individual Consultant
Contract Type
International Individual Consultant
Hiring Section
Education
Location
Remote with visit to countries when required
Duration
11.5 months
Start/End date
01.07.2023
15.06. 2024
Background and Justification
The world is facing a learning crisis. Millions of children are not developing the skills they need to break out of poverty. The growth of digital technologies and the increasingly broad range of actors, donors, implementers and even content developers providing online learning or digital education means UNICEF can contribute towards the delivery of learning opportunities anywhere, at any time. Thus, digital platforms have the potential to ensure continuity of learning but more than half of the world’s children and young people are on the wrong side of the digital divide, limiting access to the same opportunities as their connected peers. Towards this end, UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) is working to accelerate new exemplars of low-income countries pursuing a whole-of-society (wos) and whole of government (wog) approaches to using digital technologies to Re-Imagine Education Agenda through increasing access to digital learning CONTENT and PLATFORMS to enable personalized learning, provision of digital CONNECTIVITY for schools including supporting public financing for the Giga Initiative, lowering the cost or availing the end user DEVICES for every child and young person, working with partners to develop affordable DATA solutions and engaging YOUNG PEOPLE to play a part in re-imagining education, including volunteering initiatives, mentorship and peer education.
Therefore, Education section in UNICEF ESARO is seeking an individual consultant to provide technical assistance to country offices in the region, oversee and manage the implementation of the digital learning programmes.
Scope of Work
The scope of the assignment is to provide coordination support to ESAR countries, provide technical assistance, oversight implementation, consolidate updates from and disseminate with appropriate stakeholders and strengthen monitoring mechanism for digital learning programme and support countries in documenting, disseminating, and integrating digital technologies into the national education system.
Major tasks
- Coordinate and provide technical support to ESAR countries to advance the Reimagine Education agenda in the region, including strengthening programme design, mentoring and monitoring of the programme implementation.
- Support and expand the deployment of Learning Passport, GIGA, Airtel, EdTech Hub and other Digital Technologies Partnerships in ESAR;
- Create documentation of best practices, develop knowledge products on digital learning, organize workshops, webinars, learning sessions and disseminate within UNICEF across stakeholders.
- Participates in regular meetings and contributes to providing updates and share insights and reflections from country coordination and implementations.
Outputs/Deliverables:
The consultant will be required to produce the outputs as specified below.
Del. #
Output #
Deliverable
Timeframe
1
Develop a robust monitoring and promotional mechanism to grow the number of the registered and trained users on the Learning Passport and Airtel partnership support across 17 countries in ESAR (Present + upcoming countries).
Gather and aggregate results plans and country targets for the Learning Passport growth in the ESA region in 2023 and 2024
Situation analysis of digital learning policy and operational plan, status of deployment, summary of progress, existing bottlenecks and barriers, actions initiated by MOE and UNICEF Country offices, Monitoring and evaluation activities, deployments of user survey activated, and promotional strategy developed and disseminated in 17 countries; one strong case documented and ready for publication
31st August 2023
2
Tool for Learning Passport platform contents mapping, and quality assurance developed and disseminated in 12 countries; gap highlighted, and support provided to strengthen contents inclusive and gender transformative.
Country wise content mapping and quality assurance action taken documented for 10 LP deployment countries
30th September 2023
3.
Knowledge management product developed and disseminated
Two knowledge management product developed and virtually disseminated across countries in ESARO
Three (3) speaking engagements or blogs or interventions or country consultation responses and 2 blogs or human-interest stories
15th November 2023
4
Play a leading role in hosting or co-hosting at least one (1) workshop/webinar, sharing best practices or promoting agreed positions with a view to shaping digital learning in the region.
Brief workshop/webinar report
15th December 2023
5
Provides quality assurance and oversight support in the development of at least one (3) offline digital learning project (offline learning passport), pilot or large-scale demonstration of digital learning programme including Offline Learning Passport Edge devices, Learning Passport mobile apps or Progressive Web apps
Offline digital learning programme operationalized in 3 countries
31st December 2023
6
Ensure all five pillars of the Reimagine Education initiative is well understood and support to at least 10 of 17 countries embark on any of them by participating in country advocacy efforts or taking up speaking opportunities. These include working with partners like MNOs on affordable data, and data incentivization for the Learning Passport
Advocacy and digital learning campaign materials developed and disseminated
15th Feb 2024
7
Make a business case for feature enhancements of at least five countries Learning Management System, not limited to Learning Passport based upon user feedback.
Progress or Activity Report
31st March 2024
8
Final report on deployment of learning passport and reimagine education across ESA countries
Final consolidated report developed and shared across 21 countries (virtually)
30th June 2024
Payment Schedule
Payment schedule is indicated in the above table, linked to each key deliverable.
Desired competencies, technical background and experience
- Advanced university degree or equivalent experience in Education, Education Technology, ICT or related field of study. *A first-level university degree in a relevant field combined with seven years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree.
- At least 5 years of proven experience in the implementation of technology programmes
- Solid experience in the design and implementation of education programme at scale.
- Excellent writing skills, planning and coordination skills, with proven ability to work independently.
- Previous work with UNICEF (HQ or ROs) is an added advantage.
- Must exhibit the UNICEF Core Values of:
- Care
- Respect
- Integrity
- Trust
- Accountability
- Sustainability
- Competencies: The consultant should have the following competencies to deliver on the assignment.
- Drive to achieve results for impact (level 2)
- Innovates and embraces change (level 2)
- Works collaboratively with others (Level 2)
- Fluency in English (verbal and written). Knowledge of French and Portuguese is an added advantage
Administrative Issues
- The Consultant will mostly be remote-based with missions to supporting countries (at least five during the tenure). Travel will be in economy class. If the Consultant is required to quarantine due to COVID-19 restrictions while traveling, UNICEF will pay for the quarantine if not organized by the host country.
- As per UNICEF DFAM policy, payment is made against approved deliverables. No advance payment is allowed unless in exceptional circumstances against bank guarantee, subject to a maximum of 30 per cent of the total contract value in cases where advance purchases, for example for supplies or travel, may be necessary.
- The candidate selected will be governed by and subject to UNICEF’s General Terms and Conditions for individual contracts.
- Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.
- The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract.
Conditions
- Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered ‘staff members’ under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.
Risks
Given the increased workload around supporting RCCE in ESAR, due to the increased number of public health outbreaks in the region, not having this additional support poses a reputational risk to UNICEF. There is additional risk in shifting of priority of Ministry of Education and availability of resources for the deployment and demonstration of digital learning. The above-mentioned risks will be mitigated through continued advocacy for digital and alternate pathways for learning. Additionally, the existing partnership are being extended, investment case developed and disseminated to raise resources to support digital learning.
How to Apply Interested and qualified candidates should apply online using the button below. As part of their application, candidates should provide: 1. A cover letter that specifies how you meet the desired competencies, technical background and experience (no more than 2 pages) 2. A short CV (no more than 4 pages) 3. A financial proposal that should include the daily rate and total fees in USD for the assignment. (Any application without a financial proposal will not be considered) 4. 3 Referees.
Advertised: Jun 22 2023 E. Africa Standard Time
Application close: Jun 30 2023 E. Africa Standard Time
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- Closes Jun 30 2023International Consultancy – Digital Learning Specialist, Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Nairobi in Kenya
The scope of the assignment is to provide coordination support to ESAR countries, provide technical assistance, oversight implementation, consolidate updates from and disseminate with appropriate stakeholders and strengthen monitoring mechanism for digital learning programme and support countries in documenting, disseminating, and integrating digital technologies into the national education system.