UNICEF REGIONAL OFFICE for CEE/CIS

Terms of Reference

Consultancy

Title / Developing and implementing a framework and process to monitor and improve the quality of early childhood education services in 3 countries and 1 territory of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States
Purpose / -To share recent research and thinking on the question of quality in early childhood education services, its relationship to equity and learning outcomes;
-To support participating country teams in defining and planning the application of context-relevant quality frameworks to monitor, measure and improve the quality of ECE.
Expected fee / Senior professional
Location / Home base with travel to 4 locations – Albania; Bosnia & Herzegovina; Kosovo*[1]; Montenegro (with internal travel as required)
Start Date / 01 July 2015 (expected)
Duration / 40 days over the period 01 July, 2015 to 30 April, 2016
  1. INTRODUCTION

The UNICEF Regional Office for CEE/CIS seeks an Early Childhood Education Expert to provide technical assistance to four UNICEF offices [Albania (Al), Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo*(Ko) and Montenegro (Me)] and partners to develop and implement a framework and process to monitor and improve the quality of early childhood education services.

This consultancy emerges from the findings and recommendations of the 2014 Multi-country Evaluation (MCE) on Increasing Access and Equity in Early Childhood Education. The MCE covered all UNICEF activities related to advancing Early Learning and School Readiness (ELSR) efforts for children in the 3-6 year age group and covered the period 2005 to 2012. Five countries and one territory participated in the MCE: Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo*, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. This ToR responds to one of the evaluation’s recommendations to ensure quality and to review the possible risks to quality arising from rapidly increasing access.

  1. BACKGROUND

The challenge for CEECIS: equitable access to quality ECE services

Across the CEE/CIS region many countries share traditions of state-funded care and education of preschool children under former Soviet orformer Yugoslavian systems.Following the collapse of these systems and the loss of social subsidies, many countries were unable to sustain their early childhood education (ECE) and careservices because of lack of funds, structures and institutions and political will. In these countries the residual kindergartens are concentrated in urban areas and cater largely to the wealthy, leaving much of the population without access to early childhood education or care.

Many countries in the CEECIS region are facing pronounced and pressing challenges related to access, quality and equity in ECE services. This situation, affects not only the well-being of children, but also poverty reduction efforts, and the inclusion of specific populations, such as the poorest, rural populations, ethnic minorities, and the most vulnerable. Robust evidence exists on the benefits of investing in good quality childhood education services for all children and especially for the most disadvantaged. Providing good quality early childhood education services is an excellent way of nurturing and supporting children’s well-being, promoting their social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development, and providing opportunities for learning and developmental readiness for schooling. A wealth of research evidence shows that good quality ECE is particularly beneficialfor children from poor socio-economic and marginalized groups, as it can compensate for the deprivations of their social environments. Furthermore, good foundations for learning achievement at school contribute to breaking the cycle of disadvantage early in the life of young children. However, this happens only if ECE provision is of high quality and is informed by equity and inclusion policies that address the most disadvantaged children. Research findings confirm that quality and equity, when factored into funding and implementing ECE services, are associated with positive educational, economic, social and poverty reduction impacts in both developed and developing countries.

Over the past decade governments have been strengthening or rebuilding national and decentralised systems for ECE, with some countries e.g. Moldova, achieving significant expansion. However, coverage in many cases remains low with significant equity gaps in access.Where national enrolments are high the emphasis is on addressing disparities between different groups of children and between sub-national regions, which national level figures often obscure. Across the region, the quality of ECE provision is also a growing focus as stakeholders attempt to balance the pressures of expanding coverage with maintaining and strengthening the quality of services provided.

There has been a rapidly increasing access to low-cost “alternative” community-based centres, 1 year school readiness programmes as well as “condensed” pre-primary programmes (100hrs; 240 hrs) that are proliferating in the region – and there is no parallel effort to monitor or measure their quality. Little research is available to provide an in-depth assessment of quality within different types of preschool provision and possible risks to quality arising from rapidly increasing access. UNICEF has been a proponent of this form of provision but not fully reviewed the implications of this on the scope and quality of children’s preschool experiences. Apart from one comparative UNICEF study undertaken in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, little research is available on this critical issue.

In some countries, the application of standards and associated curriculums is a challenge. While standards may exist, there is a need for further/better training for teachers in the use of standards. How these standards articulate with shorter pre-primary programmes needs also to be resolved in some countries and the rapid expansion of pre-primary has led to concerns about overcrowding, approaches and resources.

Inspection systems are extremely weak across the region with overlapping accountability lines, and are often under-resourced and lacking proper regulatory frameworks and operational guidelines. The preschool provision needs to be properly inspected for compliance, quality assurance and child protection. Quality monitoring and assurance of ECE services is directly related to larger issues that countries face in the region such as ECE program improvement, scalability, certification, and impact assessment. It also has important implications for equity as it has the potential to identify variations in provision for different socio-economic population groups. In terms of policy objectives in the ECE sector, the argument is made that CEECIS countries have to improve drastically the quality of their ECE services together with increased provision and equity in early learning services especially for the most disadvantaged children.

Pre-service and in- service training vary by country, with some providers being active partners in the revisions to sectoral standards and approaches whilst in others they remain disconnected from these attempts at quality improvement.. Being able to pay for teachers to attend courses is a barrier in most countries. Inclusive education is only now beginning to be a part of pre-service and in-service training but the hours/depth of training remains inadequate as yet. Studies on learning outcomes have been limited and there is little information of teaching quality or quality of different types of provision in the region.

Existing Quality Frameworks

A variety of quality frameworks exist. The OECD (2012) describes five “policy levers” to encourage quality in ECE. These include: setting out quality goals and regulations; designing and implementing curriculum and standards; improving qualifications, training and working conditions; engaging families and communities; and, advancing data collection, research and monitoring.

The 2005 EFA Global Monitoring Report focused on quality gave priority to teaching and learning processes – including learning time; teaching methods; assessment, feedback, incentives; class size; as well as other enabling inputs that included, teaching and learning materials; curriculum; physical learning environment; teacher quality; leadership: principals, inspectors, supervisors, administrators; and parent and community involvement.

The EU principles of a quality framework highlight accessibility, workforce, curriculum, monitoring and evaluation and governance and funding.

The International Step by Step Association, working in the CEE/CIS region for several years now, focuses mainly on educators in its conceptualization and advocacy for quality. Competent Educators for the 21st Century: principles of quality pedagogy, emphasizes interactions, family and community, inclusion, diversity, and values of democracy, assessment and planning, teaching strategies, the learning environment and professional development.

For UNICEF, quality encompasses physical learning environments, teaching and learning processes, teachers and auxiliary staff, curriculum, leadership and governance and parent and community involvement. Child-centred approaches that are inclusive, with early identification of children at risk, are central to equitable support for all children and are additional dimensions of quality, complemented by suitable referral and support interventions. The quality of professionals – managers, educators, health and social workers – is a prerequisite: workforce training and professional development is essential.

Through such quality ECE all children should achieve a range of outcomes that supports their development and the realisation of their potential and prepares them for school and later life. These include cognitive development measurable through traditional education assessments, but go well beyond this to include children’s holistic development in: (i) physical health and motor development, (ii) socio-emotional development, (iii) approaches to learning and (iv) language development, literacy and communication. Learning outcomes should be defined according to the age, development stage and abilities of each child and assessed against relevant indicators.

UNICEF recognises that achieving and sustaining such outcomes depends not only on supporting the child through quality ECE services, but also through supportive families ready for their child’s development and transition to primary education, as well as through primary schools’ readiness for children’s entry into primary education, as reflected in UNICEF’s Regional Education Agenda: Including all children in quality learning and the regional Call for Action: Education Equity Now!

  1. RATIONALE

UNICEF recognises access to quality ECE services as a criticalcontribution to overcoming disadvantage and inequity, and has committed to increasing its focus on this area in its most recent Global Strategic Plan for 2014-2017. Across the CEE/CIS region new impetus and emphasis has been brought to ECE through the Call for Action: Education Equity Now! launched in 2013 by Education Ministers from 17 countries in the region. As part of a broader education agenda, this Call for Action urges governments and their partners to accelerate progress towards ensuring that every child is learning early and enrolling on time. UNICEF has been working in partnership with governments, donors, non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations to support transition to sustainable, quality ECE services, able to reach all children aged 3-6.

In addition to several publications on quality there have been many important events related to the subject, such as the UNICEF & GRA/GPE high level technical consultation on improving quality in ECE in 2012. While these have generated general consensus on the importance and components of quality, at country level there continues to be ambiguity and confusion with regard to how concepts of quality can be applied to different structures, mechanisms and processes and with regard to how appropriate tools should be selected and used.

A new CEE/CIS strategic guidance document (under finalization) notes that: ELSR quality is an emerging focus for UNICEF and addressing system bottlenecks in terms of teacher career structures, management, inspection, training and professional development will be important as UNICEF emphasises sustainable progress in quality as well as access. A better understanding of what quality entails will need to underpin this. There has been limited opportunity for longitudinal research and the best research examples have been comparative reviews of modalities. There is a need for evaluation of quality and of the outcomes of different types of provision to inform future programming.

Building on the lessons and experiences from the past decade, and the recommendations of the MCE,UNICEF plans to bring a renewed strategic focus to its ECE programming, alert to the fact that due cognisance must be given to the possible risks to quality arising from rapidly increasing access and the variety of early education providers.

  1. OBJECTIVES

There is a recognition of the need to develop a robust conceptual framework to measure, monitor and improve the quality and equity of ECE services, specifically tailored to contextual questions and challenges in the CEECIS countries. The current consultancy aims to develop and implement a quality framework for early childhood education in CEE/CIS region. The main objectives of this consultancy is to:

  1. to share recent research and thinking on the question of quality in early childhood education services, its relationship to equity and learning outcomes;
  2. to support participating country teams in defining and planning the application of context-relevant quality frameworks to monitor, measure and improve the quality of ECE.
  1. MAIN TASKS
  1. Make specific recommendations to establish/review minimum standards and improve the quality of early childhood education services;
  2. Assess the adequacy of available data and information on the quality of ECE services;
  3. Develop a comprehensive framework that addresses existing gaps and can be used to monitor and measure the quality of ECE services (preschool and alternative arrangements) at the national, sub-national and local levels provided by the public and private sectors;
  4. Contextualize the quality framework and recommend how and with which instruments, key components of ECE quality should be monitored and measured at national, sub-national and local levels on an ongoing basis and with what periodicity;
  5. Provide guidance to support the revision of regulations,standards and inspection/supervision.
  6. Recommend how data/information gathered should be used for evidence-informed quality improvement of ECE services.
  1. METHODOLOGY
  1. Desk review of relevant available documents at country level.
  2. Participatory consultations with all ECE actors, including preschool teachers and directors, local authorities, MoE officials, UNICEF and civil society stakeholders, as well as parents, in order todefine the expected quality of services,a quality framework and process to monitor and measure quality.
  3. Field visits to typical ECE services.
  1. ISSUING OFFICE

Early Childhood Development Section, UNICEF Regional Office for CEE/CIS, Geneva

  1. SUPERVISOR

The consultant will report directly to Dr. Deepa Grover, Senior Advisor, ECD, UNICEF Regional Office.

  1. DELIVERABLES

Deliverables
Outline and plan of consultancy assignment + inception report based on desk review and interactions with UNICEF COs
Schematic and narrative presentation of generic quality framework
Country analysis of opportunities and challenges to measure and monitor quality of ECE provision x 4
Contextualised country specific frameworks (with recommended tools and monitoring and evaluation plans) x 4
Final report
  1. TIMELINE

40 days from 01 July, 2015 – 30 April, 2016

  1. TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE AND QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED
  • Higher education degree/s in Education, ECD, Human Development, Social Policy or other relevant discipline.
  • Extensive working experience in early childhood development and/or early childhood education and previous experience of providing expert technical assistance to ECE stakeholders at country level.
  • Knowledge and experience of socio-economic issues in CEE/CIS region. Field experience in CEE/CIS countries is an asset.
  • Record of research experience and/or written publications at the regional level; publications on quality in early childhood education and care an asset.
  • Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to interview and guide ECE stakeholders.
  • Excellent written English language skills, demonstrable with samples of publications. Knowledge of language/s spoken in the Balkans sub-region is an asset.
  • Excellent drafting skills and ability to synthesise complex information and issues.
  • Strong analytical and conceptual thinking.
  • Ability to organize and plan complex work following the established timeframes.
  • Previous experience working for UNICEF an asset
  1. LOCATION AND TRAVEL
  • Visit of 5 – 7 days to each target countries and relevant data offices are required.
  • The consultancy will require frequent communication with the ECD Section in Geneva and with ECE Specialists in country offices.
  • Travel and daily subsistence allowances will be as per the rules and regulations of the UNICEF.
  • UNICEF at country and regional levels will support travel facilitation (e.g. support for obtaining visas)
  • Any additional specific information regarding the time schedule, procedures, benefits, travel arrangements and other logistical issues will be discussed with successful candidate/s.
  • Country Offices (COs) will provide support for local logistics, travel, translation, setting up appointments, field visits, etc.
  1. ESTIMATED COST OF CONSULTANCY

The applicant will be required to indicate expected professional fees.

  1. PAYMENT SCHEDULE

Deliverables / Payment
Outline and plan of consultancy assignment + inception report based on desk review and interactions with UNICEF COs / 20%
  • Schematic and narrative presentation of generic quality framework
  • Country analysis of opportunities and challenges to measure and monitor quality of ECE provision x 2
  • Contextualised country specific frameworks (with recommended tools and monitoring and evaluation plans) x 2
/ 40%
  • Country analysis of opportunities and challenges to measure and monitor quality of ECE provision x 2
  • Contextualised country specific frameworks (with recommended tools and monitoring and evaluation plans) x 2
  • Final report
/ 40%
  • UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs is/are incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines. Professional fees will be paid on the successful completion of specific tasks and the satisfactory submission of deliverables.
  • All materials developed will remain the copyright of UNICEF and that UNICEF will be free to adapt and modify them in the future.
  1. Application Procedure

Qualified candidates are requested to submit a Cover Letter (expressing their interest) and completed P.11 formwhich can be downloaded here: Ms. Petronilla Murithi at by 17 June, 2015 with the subject line: Monitoring and Improving Quality in ECE.Candidates may wish to also include in their application package, a Concept Note (including Draft Plan) describing how they will approach the assignment.