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Consultancy Title:  Terms 0f Reference for Ladder to Learning Inclusion and Gender Analysis

Organisation: Street Child

Duty Station:  Palabek, Kyaka II and Kampala Uganda

 

Consultancy Summary: Street Child is looking for an individual consultant (preferable) or consultancy firm to support the collection, complication of data, analysis and writing of the report for a gender and inclusion analysis in Palabek, Kyaka II and Kampala.

 

About Street Child:

Street Child is a UK charity, established in 2008, that aims to create educational opportunity for some of the world’s most vulnerable children. Street Child started in Sierra Leone in 2008 working with a small number of street children. Since then, they have helped over 50,000 children to go to school and enabled thousands of families to generate sustainable incomes so that their children can stay in education. In Uganda, Street Child is registered as an International Non-Governmental Organization (IN-GO) operating in both development and humanitarian sector since 2018.

 

Project context

There are an estimated 4.2 million refugees in East Africa, of whom 1.4 million are in Uganda. 40% of refugees are children [UNHCR 2020] for whom education offers safety, security, and stability – and lifesaving, life-sustaining learning. However, a study of over a thousand refugee children across East Africa finds that two in five children cannot enroll in education, despite attempting to, due to differences in language, learning norms, and loss of learning [Stark et al. 2015]. This exclusion is exaggerated in Uganda: only 267,337 out of an estimated 620,274 children are enrolled – meaning over half re-main excluded from education [ERP 2018].

 

Language and learning norms are core constraints on access to education [Street Child & YARID 2020; YARID 2018]. Burundian, Congolese, Somali and South Sudanese learners entering state schools, de-spite having acquired age-appropriate curricular competencies in Arabic or French, experience difficulties demonstrating them in English – and are assigned to lower levels. The lack of alignment between their cognitive and linguistic levels leads to disengagement, disruption, and dropout from schooling – and their isolation and sense of shame at being assigned to lower levels has lasting psychological and psychosocial impact. Our own assessments and analyses are substantiated by a study of 328 Congo-lese and Somali refugees in Uganda finding that differences in language lead to lower levels of social cohesion and in turn, lead to discrimination that diminishes self-confidence and self-worth, and to withdrawal from school amongst refugee learners [Stark et al. 2015]. Disruption and dropout have destabilising effects, exaggerating exposure to risk for children, including exploitation, exploitative la-bour, and early marriage and motherhood for girls.

 

Project Description

Street Child in partnerships with YARID, are conducting a programme that integrates play into a proven pedagogical approach, as a creative solution to accelerate access to education and improve resilience for 4,800 refugee learners [1,920 boys; 2.880 girls] aged 9 to 12+ and to advance (i) cross-community cohesion and cooperation, and (ii) intentional inclusion of high-risk categories of children – offering a contextualised, culturally-responsive and resilient model that couples our local level experience and close collaboration with the foundation’s network of educators and experts.

 

Ladder to Learning is the first and only language intervention for refugee learners and is highly innovative, engaging and an active way for students to learn. It is a short (6 month), intensive intervention that supports out of school learners at a primary level, who are 9-14 years old, using activity-based learning to improve refugee children’s core competencies in English. This in turn, results in an increase in their integration and retention in schools in Uganda. This interactive and activity based TaRL in-spired approach ensures out of school refugee learners develop the foundational literacy and numeracy skills they need to access formal education.

 

The proposed project acknowledges that addressing differences in language, differential degrees of  learning loss, and disruption and dropout demands an integrated pedagogical approach that advances the cognitive, creative, emotional, physical and psychosocial skills of learners. Play opens up pedagogical  possibilities for accelerating the acquisition of these interconnected skills in a context where they are (I)  critical to survival; (ii) crucial to increasing coping capacities; and (iii) can catalyse sustained success for  at-risk refugee learners.

 

Street Child and YARID want to ensure inclusion for all children and are therefore conducting an inclusion and gender analysis at the start of the project.

 

Project Objectives

The project proposes to reach 4,800 refugee learners aged 9 to 12+ who have

• never enrolled;
• enrolled and disengaged; or
• enrolled and dropped out of state schools in Uganda. The project prioritises learners aged 9 to 12+, for whom language change is a core constraint on access, as education policies and programmes allow learning in local languages until age 9 in Uganda.

 

The project privileges the participation of two high-risk categories of children. An intensive inclusion  assessment and analysis will inform inception, and assure our ability target and tailor activities to reach  and respond to the distinctive, differential needs of –

• 2,880 [60%] girls who are at greater risk of never enrolling, and at greater risk of disengagement, disruption and dropout prior to the pandemic. As per an assessment showing that ~20% fewer refugee girls enroll in state schools upon arrival, our programme will prioritise the inclusion of 20% more girls than boys and the inclusion of female teachers; and
• 240 [5%] learners living with disabilities who are at greater risk of never enrolling, as they endure exclusion on account of mobility or sensory impairments, as well as language. Our pro-gramme will prioritise inclusive play and incorporate inclusive infrastructure [e.g., accessible locations, ramps] and instructional approaches in teacher training, teaching, and learning

 

Analysis purpose and scope

The objectives of the inclusion and gender analysis are:

• To conduct desk research to explore the current status of gender equality and inclusion within the target communities. This will be a brief introductory note for the report to set the situation and help tailor the analysis.
• To assess the needs of marginalized children such as Children with Disabilities (CwD) and girls and see how the programme can be adapted to suit their specific needs.
• To generate information on the gender gaps and inclusion gaps within access to education.
• To compile and share with Street Child recommendations for possible solutions for how Street Child can adapt the project to ensure it is inclusive and gender transformative.
• To compile a report to be shared with Street Child based upon the recommendations.

 

The analysis will be conducted in the 3 target locations: Palabek, Kyaka II and Kampala.

 

The scope of this consultancy is to:

• Conduct a Desk Review of the current gender and inclusion situation in the target areas
• Help design/finalise data collection and analysis tools for collection of both quantitative and qualitative data, using Focus Group Discussions and Key informant interviews.
• Carry out piloting and modification of tools
• Conduct training on Gender and Inclusion to the data collectors.
• Train the data collectors on the tools
• Oversee data collection and entry
• Conduct data validation and analysis
• Draft, revise and finalise the analysis report which details key recommendations for adapta-tions for the project to make it more inclusive and gender sensitive
• Work closely with Street Child to ensure the relevance of the recommendations to the project.

 

Methodology

• The evaluation will interview girls, boys, CwD, women and men through FGD using specific tools de-signed for the different target groups. Street Child is suggesting to conduct 31 FGD with 10 participants in each and 6 Key Informant Interviews
• We are looking for the majority of the data collected to be qualitative, with some quantitative data to support.
• The majority of the data collectors will be female and girls, women and young boys should only be interviewed by female data collectors.

 

Tasks, Deliverables and Suggested Timeframe

The required consultancy deliverables and tasks are:

• A detailed inception report, including a detailed work plan, detailed methodology for both da-ta collection and analysis, draft data collection tools and outline of the analysis report.
• A briefing with key Street Child staff to discuss the proposition.
• Training of data collectors and data entry assistants, ensuring consistency of translation from
• data collection tools written in English to local language during data collection. Sufficient gen-der and inclusion training should be conducted for the data collectors.
• Testing and revision of data collection and analysis tools.
• A briefing for key Street Child staff on rationale and implications.
• Participating, supervision and quality assurance of field data collection and entry
• A draft analysis report, including accurately analysed data. Key themes and recommendations identified on how to adapt the programme.
• A briefing with key Street Child staff to review the findings of the report.
• Incorporating feedback and submitting a final report.
• All Excel and word hosted data sets and original data collection forms provided in English.

 

Street Child will be jointly responsible for:

• Preparing relevant documentation and making it available to the consultant
• Holding an introductory meeting with the consultant to provide background information and to finalise timelines and expectations
• Reviewing the inception report and providing the consultant with specific and timely feedback
• Providing support to the hiring and training of data collectors and data entry assistants.
• Street Child will support on organise the coordination.

 

Budget: Street Child will provide the consultant with a lump sum for the duration of the data collection and report writing. This will include all costs incurred by the consultant.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

Skills and qualifications of consultants

The consultant should meet the following requirements:

Essential:

• Over 6 years’ experience of working in senior management roles in gender and inclusion (essential);
• Demonstrable experience of leading multiple gender and inclusion analysis or evaluations (essential);
• Significant skills and experience in qualitative data collection and analysis (essential);
• Excellent communication skills including report writing (essential);
• Experience of collecting, analysing and synthesising qualitative data using a rigorous approach (essential);
• Experience of overseeing and training data collectors, including providing a quality assurance function (essential);
• Experience in conducting gender and inclusion training (essential);
• Experience of working with children, facilitating participatory approaches to data collection (essential);
• Experience in designing tools tailored to the participants specific needs (essential)
• Able to reliably access the Internet, as well as relevant national policy/planning documents and surveys (essential);
• Fluent English in both writing and speaking (essential);
• Willingness to familiarise self with, and sign up to abiding by, Street Child’s Child Protection and safeguarding Policies (essential).

 

Preferred:

• The ideal candidate must hold a Masters’ degree in a relevant Humanity discipline coupled with advanced skills in Research
• Methodologies or Gender and Inclusion (preferred);
• Post or undergraduate qualification in Monitoring and Evaluation
• Experience of working in Uganda or East Africa (preferred);
• Experience working in a refugee settlement (preferred).

 

Application process and timeline

Interested consultants must submit the following documents:

• Cover Letter (one page)
• Updated CV,
• Reference details of three previous clients for which each team member undertook a similar task
• Sample of previous work in similar consultancy work (assessment/survey/evaluation assessment), with contact details for commissioning client.
• Technical proposal (three pages) including:
  • Outline of methodology and data collection tools to be used
  • Child safeguarding protocol

 

The evaluator(s) will be selected based on their relevant experience and expertise, rigour of their de-sign, availability and value for money.

 

Schedule:

The suggested schedule for the assignment is structured as follows:

 

Period: Tasks

• 4th – 9th March 2022: Applications to be submitted
• 11th March 2022: To hold interviews with successful consultants
• 14th – 18th March 2022: Finalisation of the tools
• 21st March – 22nd March 2022: Training of Data Collectors (Steet Child will attend the training and support on conducting the background of the project)
• 23rd March – 6th April 2022: Data to be collected
• 11th April 2022: Consultant to share key recommendations with Street Child on adaptations of the project. These recommendations will be used for the basis of the report
• 29th April 2022: Final report to be submitted to Street Child

 

How to Apply:

All documents must be submitted via email to    recruitment.uganda@street-child.org

 

Deadline: 13^th March 2022

 

Please note: Selected individuals /firms must be available to start this exercise by 21st March and work to finalise the tools week commencing 14th March.

 

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