Ethiopia: Invitation for International Consultancy Service

Invitation for International Consultancy Service

Organizing the Supplementary Reading Materials Review Capacity Building Workshop for MoE, RSEBs/ZEDs

Background

Save the Children (SC) is the world’s leading independent non-profit organization working in diversified areas to improve lives of children. One of the many recent undertakings of the Save the Children in Ethiopia is implementing the USAID Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Community Outreach /READ-CO Project /aiming to improve the reading and writing skills of children through reviewing, developing new and availing supplementary reading materials as well as creating opportunities of children to practice reading and writing skills at school, home and community levels.

The READ-CO is a USAID funded four-year/2015-2018/ project to improve the reading skills of children in seven languages- Amharic, Tigrigna, Afaan Oromo, Wolayetegna, Sidama Afuu, Hadyegna and Af-Somali. In order to effectively realize the project’s objective, Save the Children works closely with the Ministry of Education (MoE) and Regional State Education Bureaus (RSEBs-Amhara, Oromia,Tigray,SNNPR and Somali)and READ-CO’s project’s implementing partners TDA, ADA, OWDA and ANFEAE to ensure the following three Intermediate Results obtained;

Objective of the workshop

The major focus of the review workshop is to ensure primary school children get access to quality supplementary reading materials in vernacular languages so as to develop their five core reading skills: namely, phonemic awareness, grapho-phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension as stated in the new curriculum developed in the 7 mother tongue languages.

Thus, the objective of the review workshop is to build the technical capacities of MoE, RSEBs/ZEDs staff on how to identify and review both existing and newly developed Supplementary Reading Materials/SRMs/ for grades 1- 8 in 7 MTLs. The workshop will ensure the reviewers’ team has acquired all knowledge, skills and talents to review grades 1-8 materials developed as per the new mother tongue curriculum. Thus, at the end of the workshop, the participants will be able to:

• Acquire skills and techniques which will enable them to technically identify, review and adopt quality SRMs prepared for grades 1-8 in 7 vernacular languages (Amharic, Affan-Oromo, Af-Somali, Tigrigna, Sidama Afuu, Wolaitigna and Hadiyigna).
• Understand and use the scope and sequence in the new mother tongue curriculum for the review of materials.
• Identify the learning support needs of Ethiopia’s primary school children to further guide the development, review and adoption of priority SRMs.
• Develop a comprehensive standard tool for SRMs review, using the draft guidelines for development and selection of supplementary materials.
• Make actual review of the existing and the new supplementary reading materials in order to verify that the materials meet the MoE’s/RSEBs/ZEDs objective to develop the five core reading skills for the intended grade levels. They will use the standard tool to determine the alignment with the new mother tongue curriculum as well as evaluating them based on the MoE’s SRMs guideline. Accordingly, the participants will review selected existing materials for grades 1-4 available from the current market. Besides, they will also review the newly developed decodables, leveled readers and read aloud by READ-CO for grades 1&2.

Approaches and Processes for the SRMs review:

According to the MoE SRMs guideline, ‘Supplementary reading materials can either be developed locally or be selected and purchased from local, national, or international markets. However, in both cases, materials must meet the minimum quality standards outlined in the document for supplementary reading materials.’ Regarding the quality; ‘The guidelines in this document ensure the selection and/or development of appropriate and quality supplementary reading materials by stakeholders at federal, regional, and school levels.(Page 1 of the draft SRMs Guideline of MOE)

Therefore, the MoE, RSEBs/ZEDs will send qualified and experienced participants for the workshop in reviewing SRMs based on MoE and SC agreed up on selection criteria. (This will be stated on the invitation letters.) This will enable the project to obtain qualified and experienced professionals in mother tongue instruction, development and review of curriculum and text books in evaluation and approval of textbooks / supplementary reading materials

Job Requirements

The International Consultant is expected to possess the following qualification and experiences:

• PhD or MA degree in reading and/or curriculum, with experience in the evaluation of reading/writing programs and/or materials
• 5 or more years of Extensive experience in early grade supplementary reading materials development and evaluation—including decodable texts and leveled readers and other grade-level texts; experience in Ethiopia or similar contexts preferred;
• Proven experience in training curriculum specialists and others in the evaluation/review of reading materials;
• Experience in designing and testing/evaluating instructional materials
• Experience in facilitating training activities to support the development and/or review of pedagogical materials, with experience in evaluating early grade supplementary reading materials preferred;
• Experience in designing of curriculum guides and other tools or instruments to evaluate and/or review early grade reading materials, including the use of readability criteria and scope and sequence documents;
• Experience in developing and implementing reading improvement programs and/or activities for children who have difficulty in learning to read/write; and
• Experiences in mother tongue curriculum and/or instruction

The detailed Terms of Reference (TOR) for the consultancy work can be found from Reception at Save the Children Ethiopia Country Office in Addis Ababa, situated around Bisrate Gabriel Church Dire Complex Building. From the TOR; applicants can get full information on what to incorporate in the proposal.

Interested applicants should submit two separate sealed documents in which one document should include the technical proposal including curriculum vitae of the proposed professional(s) with supporting document that shows previous work experience. The second document should include professional fee on the bases of daily rates, VAT and per diem costs, as well as transport costs separately for the stated work along with copy of renewed Consultancy License to Save the Children Ethiopia Country Office in Addis Ababa, situated around Bisrate Gabriel Church, Dire Complex Building, before Monday August 3, 2015at 4:30 P.M in person. mekdes.ephrem@savethechildren.org

Only proposals from individuals will be accepted. Proposal from firms will not be accepted.

“Save the Children aims to be a child safe organization”.