Evaluation of VSO’s Work to Improve Teacher Effectiveness in Ethiopia and Zanzibar

CONSULTANCY OPPORTUNITY

Call for proposals to undertake an evaluation of VSO’s Work to Improve Teacher Effectiveness in Ethiopia and Zanzibar

Voluntary Services Oversees (VSO) is the world’s leading independent int ernational development organisation that works throug h volunteers to fight poverty in developing coun tries. VSO’s high impact approach involves bringing pe ople together to share skills, build capabilities, promote international understanding and action, and change lives to make the world a fairer place.

VSO are commissioning an evalu ation of work to improve teacher effectiveness in Ethiopia and Zanzibar, both of which use different approaches to teacher professional development. This evaluation will provide a comparative analysis of two models to distil learning of relevance fo r VSOs wider education programme portfolio. We are keen to: (a) Test the validity and effectiveness of VSOs tripartite theory (teaching and learning, educatio n governance, and community engagement), a nd (b) better understand depth vs breadth tradeoffs – depth referring to interventions where VSO reac hes smaller numbers of beneficiaries (children in school) intensively through mentoring / coaching teac hers and school leaders in clusters of schools, and breadth referring to cascaded teacher training models where VSO uses a ‘train the trainer’ approach to ultimat ely reach large numbers of beneficiaries.

VSO invites applications from suitably qualified consultants. Specifically we require:

• Experience in conducting and/or managing Education evaluation studie s in East Africa;

• Specialist knowledge of evaluation methodologies for education interventions in developing countries;

• Strong facilitation and communication skills, with experience of work ing collaboratively with local teams of developm ent professionals in the education sector;

• Language / translation skills, as required for country visits;

• An understanding of the issues surrounding improving the effectiveness of teachers; and,

• Strong drafting skills an d ability to produce good quality reports in plain English.

• Experience in children participatory methodologies in evaluations

All proposals (technical and financial) should be submitted electronically to Cass andra Grasso (cassandra.grasso@vsoint.org) in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF format by 4pm GMT on Friday 27 June 2014. Late proposals will not be accepted.

If you have any questions relating to the requirements of the tender, please submit them to Cassandra who will liaise with the relevant member of staff to collate a response.

Interested parties should contact Cassandra by email to express and interest a nd in this email provide confirmation of where you saw the advertisement for the commission.