TERMS OF REFERENCE
Development of Software for the Skills Observatory
I. BACKGROUND
The Skills Development and Innovation Support Project (SDISP) project’s development objective (PDO) is to improve transparency of resource allocation and promote accountability in higher education, enhance the relevance of secondary technical vocational education, and support innovation capacity in Macedonia. The overall project supports the Government of the Republic of Macedonia’s (MOES) initiatives geared to:
• increase graduates’ competitiveness on a regional and international level;
• increase labor market relevance of graduates’ skills;
• make innovation a source of productivity improvement, competitiveness, increased exportability of goods, and sustained economic growth;
• increase universities and private enterprises engagement in, and their benefit from, R&D efforts and technology adoption opportunities.
Among other objectives, the Project supports interventions which foster education and skills relevant to the job market, and enhance the innovation capacity and activity of firms in Macedonia.
Specific information/background regarding the assignment
The Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) intends to develop a system for a Skills Observatory (SO) that will enable the collection of electronic information from at least 30 institutions and its presentation to the public in a strictly defined form. The Skills Observatory should be a management information tool addressing the dynamics of labor market conditions and supply of training programs.
Skills observatories across different countries aim at supporting the decision making process with evidence – based information, in the context of educational and labor market policies. Several European countries such as Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, have recently established IT platforms and skills or labor market observatories, collecting and disseminating data on alignment of employment and training programs. Some of these tools focus on results of training programs. They provide measuring of HE, VET and AL performance, by tracing placement of graduates in the labor market. In other cases (Chile, Colombia, United Kingdom) these information tools tend to focus more on economy development, by addressing investment interests and enhancement of employability. They provide information and analysis on availability of adequately skilled workers and their wage expectations, attracting new investors, facilitating the planning of new business initiatives, and guiding students and parents on market trends, required competences as well as career and school choices with promising employment prospects. In all cases, these approaches provide a perspective on the supply, relevance and quality of training programs, enhancing the capability of decision makers to achieve a better alignment of educational programs with labor market demand, in search of an effective social impact.
II. OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
This ToR is to hire a consulting firm to design, develop and implement the Skills Observatory at the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Macedonia as a website platform providing information on performance of Higher Education (HE), Vocational Education (VET), and Adult Learning (AL) training programs.
The overall aim of the Skills Observatory (SO) will be to fill in the related information gaps that exist at the moment by providing adequate analytical and informational background and consequently, facilitate the process of:
· Providing adequate, profound and rich diagnosis of the actual needs of the employers and the actual supply of existing educational programs and facilities. Design and use of a system-wide technologically modern management information and statistical data system that would integrate the various modules (such as educational statistics, financial information, physical condition of educational facilities and human resource management, etc.)
· Enhancing matching of skills between those supplied by educational institutions and those demanded by employers. (Providing evidence to address the mismatch in the fields and also the mismatch of particular competences that employers require within professions.)
· Developing evidence based policy combined with focusing funds where they guarantee largest social impact.
· Providing reliable information for students, parents, employers and investors. For the employer/investor decisions to adjust employment (for example via outplacement) or create new factories/firms rely heavily on the information about availability of adequately skilled workers as well as their wage expectations. Such information is useless in aggregate terms, due to a considerable regional variation in wages as well as the disparity between skills data collected by the labour offices and bundle of competences required by the employees.
· Support decision makers in putting together the appropriate education/training/active labour market policies that enhance job matching and facilitate alignment of skills in the labour market
The lack of information on the postgraduate performance of secondary TVET students, their employability and the relevant performance of HE students, has been determined as one of the challenges that need to be addressed in order to make these information available to the government officials in order to support for the development of evidence-based policymaking. The Observatory would make available to the public, policy-makers and stakeholders information on the performance (e.g. students placed in practical training at firms, job placements after graduation) and resources available (e.g. courses, firms providing internship and practical training opportunities, infrastructure, instructors) in VET schools, higher education institutions as well as general labor market information on employment opportunities and wages in different occupations and sectors. This information will also assist the parents and future students in selecting their future school as well as the occupational field which has the most promising employment prospect.
Finally, the creation of the Skills observatory will strengthen the linkage between the labor market and education information systems, by establishing web services between various software and producing reports using relevant data, thus ensuring further strengthening of the information systems whose fundamentals are already largely in place. For this purpose, the Education Management Information System (EMIS) of the MoES will also be complemented with a module for performance of the formal TVET and HE systems.
The SO Mission is to
§ Support the development of evidence-based policymaking for the development of vocational and professional education in Macedonia, by providing adequate analytical and informational background on capacity building institutions, their program supply and performance.
§ Assist parents and students in selecting occupational fields and adequate schools, in order to enhance their future employability.
§ Facilitate alignment between labor demand and training programs at local and national levels.
III. SCOPE OF WORK
III.1. Skills Observatory Services
The SO should be a web based portal providing the following services:
1. Information on actual HE careers and VET, gymnasiums and AL programs
2. Information on curricula & skills development
3. Information on jobs placement of graduates
4. Information on cost of studies
5. Links to information on jobs demand and economic development
6. Forecasting of labor demand on skills and jobs profiles
7. Access to research on alignment of education and labor market
Prior to beginning with development of the software, but not later than 2 weeks after contract effectiveness, the Consultant must prepare and submit to the Client for approval a Project Plan addressing the following:
a) Project Organization and Management Plan - This Organization and Management Plan will provide the Client with a list of all members of the proposed team, with a detailed description of all roles and responsibilities of each of its members.
b) Implementation Plan - A timetable of activities, resources involved, etc.
c) Communication plan- A description of procedures for communication
d) Training Plan – A description of the proposed training methodology
e) Technical (helpdesk) support plan – A description of the level of technical support (phone/on-line) and daily schedule (i.e. 24 Hrs - 7days) offered by the Consultant on the application.
f) Warranty Plan – A detailed description of the warranty plan and services.
III.2. Business Requirements to be met by the System
The Skills Observatory will collect electronic information from the following institutions:
· The Pension and Disability Insurance Fund of Macedonia (PDIFM)
· The Ministry of Education and Science (MoES)
· The National Employment Agency (NEA)
· The State University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius” - Skopje
· The State University “Ss. Kliment Ohridski” – Bitola
· The State University “Goce Delcev” - Shtip
· The University of Information Sciences at Technology “Ss. Apostol Pavle” - Ohrid
· The South East European University (SEEU) - Tetovo
· The State University - Tetovo
· VET – Vocational Education Training secondary schools
· Gymnasiums
· The Institute of Economics
· The Orthodox Theological Faculty " Ss. Kliment Ohridski "
· The Faculty of Islamic Sciences
· The First Private European University "Republic of Macedonia"
· The Private University “FON”
· The University "American College" Skopje
· The University of audio visual arts - European Film Academy "ESRA Paris-Skopje-New York"
· The University of Tourism and Management Skopje
· The International Balkan University
· The MIT – University
· The International University of Struga
· The Business Academy "Smilevski" –BAS
· The School of Journalism and Public Relations and the Institute of Communication Studies – Skopje
· The International Slavic Institute – G.R. Derjavin
· The Faculty of Business and Economics (NEOCOM)
· The University EuroBalkan
· The Institute of Agriculture
· The Institute for Social and humanity sciences
· The Institute of Agricultural Engineering and Engineering Seismology
· The Institute for Sociological and Political - Legal Research
· The Institute of Animal Science
· Adult Learning Training Centres
This is a preliminary list of institutions that may change as the project evolves according to their status and response to the Skills Observatory request for information.
III.3 Web services that need to be developed
The Consultant should provide a solution that will enable web based connectivity between the Skills Observatory and the information systems of institutions referred above (and others that may be added as the SDISP evolves). In cases in which the application of web-based services is not possible, due to institutions' technical limitations, the Consultant will create an alternative module for data exchange.
Web services for data exchange to be provided by the Consultant:
· Web Service Method retrieving data for each user, individually
· Web Service Method that retrieve data for a group of users, under different filters
· Web Service Method that retrieve general data about a particular institution
If necessary, the Consultant will as well provide additional retrieval methods, as requested by information systems of data providers and possible uses of the information by the Skills Observatory.
III.3.1 Data Analysis
During the analysis of data exchange process, the Consultant will perform data analysis as part of the required web services or suggested alternative module for data exchange. The Consultant will provide a detailed specification of this data analysis and will consequently optimize the structure of both, the suggested web services for data exchange and the eventual alternative module.
III.4. Functional Performance Requirements of the System
III.4.1 Functional requirements
The Skills Observatory information system requiring information from institution X, activates the corresponding web client. The web client calls the web service located on the server of institution X, following all functional requirements of the technical specification of this solution. The web service delivers all required, previously defined data, from the information system of institution X, following verification of the access authorization to this particular web service, and stores data in database of the Skills Observatory.
The database must register all accesses in the system.
if any given institution is not able to deliver either all or part of the required data via Web Service, the Consultant must develop an alternative module for data exchange with this given institution.
The Consultant will develop a web portal in order to provide monitoring of data exchange if service is used, as described in point III.10. “Web portal”.
The Consultant will develop, as well, a public web portal that will provide selective display of all collected information submitted by institutions, as described in point III.11. “Public web portal”.
The Consultant will develop a report generator tool for generating reports based on the collected data from institutions, as described in point III.12 “Reporting Module”.
III.4.1.1 Concurrent users and response time:
· The software must operate in real time, with at least 1000 active concurrent users simultaneously, without disturbing the system performance.
· Generation of simple reports will take less than one minute. The time used by the solution for the generation of the most complex report, will not exceed two minutes.
III.4.2 Existing information systems in selected institutions
For the implementation of the solution, the Consultant will take into consideration the existing hardware and software platform in each institution, as described below:
· PDIFM
- Databases: Oracle ver. 11.1.0.6
- Operating System: Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 SP2
- Hardware: IBM BladeServer HS21, 2 x I Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor E5430 80w 2.66GHz, 32GB RAM, 2 x 73 IBM 73.4GB 15K SFF SAS HDD RAID 0, with an access to SAN
- Web services:
host user title description
PDF MLSP MTW112 data for pensioners and insured
PDF HIF MZFZO121 data for pensioners
CR PDF on test data for trade register
· МoES
- Databases: Oracle Enterprise Edition 11g; MS SQL Express
- Operating System: IBM UNIX; Linux; Win2008 64; Win 2008 srv 64 (virtual box)
- Hardware: IBM P server; X64, 64GB; X64, 4GB
· NEA
- Databases: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition (64-bit)
- Operating System: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Service Pack 2
- Hardware: 2 servers working in Failover Cluster mode (active/pasive) type Intel (R) Xeon (R) CPU E5440 @2.83 GHz 2.83 GHz (2 processors)
· University “Ss. Kliment Ohridski” – Bitola
- Databases: Microsoft SQL server
- Operating System: Windows 2008 server R2 64-bit
- Hardware: Intel Xeon 2.40 GHz 4 GB RAM
· University of Information Sciences at Technology “Ss. Apostol Pavle” – Ohrid
- Databases: Microsoft SQL server
- Operating System: Windows 2008 server R2 64-bit
- Hardware: MB X8DTU-F
2 x Westmere 4 Cores E5606 2.13GhzRAM: 16GB DDR3 1333MHz
· University of Tourism and Management Skopje