BASELINE ASSESSMENT-EU ACCELERATING BASIC EDUCATION AND LIVELIHOOD OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian non-profit organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood, and enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We believe in the power and potential of every child, but know this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination.

Working together with children, young people, supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges girls and vulnerable children face. We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 85 years and are now active in more than 70 countries, driving changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

Plan International started operations in Nigeria in 2014 and registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). In July 2023, we launched a new five-year (2024-2028) Country Strategic Plan (CSP). The CSP outlines our bold ambition to empower 20 million girls in Nigeria to take action and drive change. This vision is shaped by the belief that no real progress in Nigeria can be made unless the millions of girls and young women who constitute a considerable proportion of its citizenry are safe and healthy; can make decisions about their bodies and lives; and are educated and empowered to bring about the change they want to see in the world. Therefore, we will not stop until 20 million girls can learn, lead, decide and thrive.

To ensure our organization is fit for the purpose of delivering on its programmatic ambition and with support from our donors, we work towards achieving these objectives with sustainable impact through gender transformative and inclusive programming in several states in Nigeria.

Project Background

The European Union funded Accelerating Basic Education and Livelihood Opportunities for Children and Youth in North Western Nigeria is to support education and youth empowerment in North West Nigeria by providing youth, in particular girls in rural underserved and nomadic communities, with access to inclusive gender transformative and conflict sensitive equitable quality education and skill development. This will be achieved by providing increased access to vocational training, including training for green jobs, and developing critical skills for women, girls, youths and nomads in the North-West of Nigeria – Sokoto, Kano, and Jigawa states.

Specific Objectives

• To increase access to safe, quality, and inclusive alternative/ accelerated education programmes for 324,000 young girls and boys (194,400F & 129,600M, 32,400 persons with disabilities (PwDs)) and support their transition into formal or non-formal education.
• To increase access to livelihood opportunities, vocational education and green jobs opportunities for 60,000 youth (36,000F & 24,000M, 6,000 PwDs).
• To advocate for and strengthen the capacities of education and community stakeholders on peaceful coexistence, safe schools and girls’ empowerment.

Plan International is seeking for Consultant(s) who will conduct a Baseline Asessment for the targeted LGAs of the Project locations.

Location

Jigawa (Kafin Hausa, Gwaram and Babura LGAs)

Kano (Nassarawa, Gwale, Kumbutso, Tudun Wada, and Rimin Gado LGAs)

Sokoto (Gwadaba, Bodinga, Sokoto North and Tambuwa LGAs)

Length of Assignment

40 days

Focus of the baseline assessment

The aim of the assessment is to establish baseline values for the project’s logical framework (attached in Annex 6). By doing so it will enable Plan International, Save the Children (SCI), Dispute Resolution and Development Initiative (DRDI) and Save the Child Initiative (STCI) to fulfil and implement the ABEP project M&E plan. The exercise will assess the needs assessment and the level of resilience of the education system and services in project locations.

Objectives of the baseline assessment

At an outcome and output level, the assessment will measure in particular the following indicators:

• National accelerated education dropout rate (desk review)

• Percentage of Children, Adolescents and Youths (CAY) who transition from accelerated education programmes to formal education and vocational training programmes and report enhanced confidence in a better future (disaggregated by age, sex, disability)

• Percentage of ABEP learners who are mainstreamed into formal schools (disaggregated by sex, disability)

• Percentage of ABEP learners who transited into vocational program (disaggregated by sex, disability)

• Percentage of ABEP facilitators who are applying learner-centred, gender-responsive, inclusive teaching approaches. (disaggregated by sex, disability)

• Percentage of community-based groups of men, women and Youths that demonstrate a critical understanding of peaceful coexistence and the prevention of violent extremism (disaggregated by sex, disability)

• Percentage of communities’ leaders who frequently engage in developing and leading actions for peace and coexistence and gender empowerment (disaggregated by sex & disability)

• Percentage of young people in wage or self-employment (including green jobs) within 6 months after training (disaggregated by sex, disability)

• Number of youths trained and complete vocational and green jobs opportunities training (disaggregated by sex, disability)

• Number of girls and boys reporting positive change in attitude relating to peace education and prevention of violence extremism and gender empowerment (disaggregated by sex, disability).

  Child rights, gender and inclusion

• In line with Plan International’s values and organizational ambition, the evaluation should seek to prioritize a focus on child rights, gender and inclusion. As a minimum, this requires:

• the disaggregation of all data points from the assessment by age, sex and disability,

• the development of an ethics protocol that safeguards children, youth and vulnerable adults, and,

• robust assessment estimates measuring adolescent girls (aged between 15-19 years old).

  Assessment Methodology

• The consultant is expected to utilize an appropriate evaluation design, a mixed-method approach that combines qualitative and quantitative assessments and the study should be conducted using an appropriate methodological framework with a gender-transformative approach, targeting local government areas in Jigawa, Kano, and Sokoto states of Northwest Nigeria. The goal is to establish a baseline for the project’s indicators. The consultant will also be expected to conduct a comprehensive desk review of relevant documents; develop appropriate data collection tools with appropriate study design, sample size determination and sampling technique. The sampling strategy pursued by the consultant(s) should enable comparison over time between baseline, midline and endline assessments, so that changes can be attributed to the intervention. The consultant will submit a draft methodology to Plan International for approval.

  The methodology will include but will not be limited to:

• Review of previous evaluation report

• Focus group discussions

• Key stakeholder interviews

• Project staff interviews

• Literature review

• Analysis of existing data

• Training approach

• Data quality approach

• Data collection and analysis approach

  Ethics and Child protection

  Plan International is committed to ensuring that the rights of those participating in data collection or analysis are respected and protected, in accordance with our Ethical MERL Framework (Annex 4), our detailed guidance on Safeguarding in MER (Annex 5), and our Child and Youth Safeguarding Policy (Annex 3). All applicants should include details in their proposal on how they will ensure ethics and child protection in the data collection process. Specifically, the consultant(s) shall explain how appropriate, safe, and non-discriminatory participation of all stakeholders will be ensured and how special attention will be paid to the needs of children and other vulnerable groups. The consultant(s) shall also explain how confidentiality and anonymity of participants will be guaranteed. Also, risk mitigation measures.

  Work Scope of External Consultant

• The Consultant(s) activities, outputs and working conditions are outlined below.

  Overall Responsibilities: The consultant will lead and coordinate the overall assessment process. Specifically, the consultant will undertake the following:

• Prepare a technical proposal with a work schedule (Plan) and a separate financial proposal and submit it to Plan International Nigeria for review not later than the date specified in the announcement.

• Hold preliminary discussions with the Consortium lead, Consortium MERL manager, project coordinators and key stakeholders.

• Design appropriate data collection tools/procedures with appropriate study design, sample size determination and sampling technique (to be discussed and agreed with Plan International team prior to the commencement of the actual assessment).

• Develop and translate data collection tools to the local language (Hausa and other Language)

• Develop appropriate training and field manual in the local language to guide the data collection process.

• Design and manage training for supervisors and interviewers/data collectors.

• Oversee the data collection process to include: assessment pre-test/Pilot test; and ensure effective management of data collection teams by supervisors.

• Produce a draft report on findings (per the required format and data request).

• Incorporate comments from the project team into the draft report and produce a final report.

• De-brief the project team and other Plan International employees both at the field and country office (after the initial field trip and upon submission of the report).

• Coordinate with the project team to disseminate study findings to respondents and other stakeholders.

• Prepare and submit an electronic copy of the raw data and final report, and two hard copies of the final report within the specified time of agreement.

• Produce a final report and make relevant amendments/enrichment based on the draft report comments.

• Present summary of findings during the Project inception meeting

• The work plan should be in Gantt chart

Key deliverables

Deliverable 1: Inception report

Format: Word document (with Kobo/ODK tool)

Length: 15 pages

Due: 25 October

Details: Includes methodology, data collection tools and refined sampling strategy.

Deliverable 2: Draft assessment report

Format: Word document (with data in Excel spreadsheet)

Length: Ibid.

Due: 25 November

Details: A brief quantitative and qualitative report, including the ABEP logical framework with baseline values. Suggested report structure provided in Annex 8). Report will be assessed using Plan International’s Completeness Assessment and Quality Assessment (Annex 1 and 2).

Deliverable 3: Final assessment report

Format: Ibid.

Length: Ibid.

Due: 2 December

Details: Ibid.

Deliverable 4: Final replicable sampling protocol

Format: Ibid.

Length: Ibid.

Due: 2 December

Details: A document which explains in detail the sampling assumptions and strategy pursued at baseline so that the same protocol can be implemented at end of project.

Plan International’s Responsibilities

The Consortium Lead with support from other staff on the Project will facilitate the following responsibilities by:

• Providing Consultants with relevant Project document.
• Linking consultants to relevant stakeholders in Jigawa, Kano and Sokoto.
• Supervise the training of field enumerators in Jigawa, Kano and Sokoto.
• Ensuring effective coordination of the study logistics to facilitate the consultant(s) in undertaking the assignment.
• Consolidating Plan International’s comments for incorporation by the consultants.
• Providing additional information on ground.

Ownership of Research Data/Findings

All data collected for this study shall remain the property of Plan International Nigeria. Any work product resulting from this study must cite Plan International Nigeria, Save the Children and the the European Union as a primary or contributing author.

Timeline

Advert: 24 September 2024– 7 October 2024

Responsible: Plan International

Activity: Inception workshop

Time: 14 October

Responsible: Plan International

Activity: Literature/document review, stakeholder consultation, sampling, study design, draft tools completed, and Submission of draft Inception report

Time: 18 October

Responsible: Consultant(s)

Activity: Address comments and submit final inception report to Plan International

Time: 25 October

Responsible: Plan International

Activity: Data collection

• Recruitment of Enumerator team
• Enumerator training
• Field piloting
• Roll out of assessment

Time: 28 October – 15 November

Responsible: Consultant(s)

Activity: Data Cleaning and Data Analysis

Time: 18 November – 22 November

Responsible: Consultant(s)

Activity: Submission of draft assessment report

Time: 25 November

Responsible: Consultant(s)

Activity: Submission of final assessment report

Time:2 December

Responsible: Consultant(s)

Activity: Submission of final replicable sampling protocol

Time: 2 December

Responsible: Consultant(s)

Please note that the recruitment and training of the Enumerator team is the responsibility of the Consultant(s). Enumerator costs should be included in the financial proposal.

Milestone Payment

Consultant(s) should submit a competitive itemized budget. Payment will be made as indicated below:

Milestone: Inception report

Detail: Approval of inception report by baseline steering committee that will be constituted

Amount to be Paid (%): 30

Deadline: 25 October

Milestone: Assessment report

Detail: Approval of final version of assessment report by baseline steering committee that will be constituted

Amount to be Paid (%): 40

Deadline: 25 November

Milestone: Replicable sampling protocol

Detail: Approval of sampling protocol by baseline steering committee that will be constituted

Amount to be Paid (%): 30

Deadline: 2 December

Expected qualifications

The Consultant(s) is expected to possess the following skills and experiences:

• Advanced Degree in a relevant discipline (Statistics, Evaluation Science, Social Sciences, Education or other related Degree),
• At least five years of hands-on experience in conducting assessments and evaluations. Experience leading project evaluations and assessments is essential (experience in North West Nigeria region is desirable);
• Strong analytical and research skills, with skills in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, drawing findings from multiple sources and handling potential contradictions between data sets, including ensuring a greater understanding of quantitative data results through the triangulation of qualitative data
• A thorough understanding of the education sector, including laws, policies and trends within Nigeria and in the international context.
• Proven experience of submitting high-quality technical reports and presentations from desk and field research processes.
• Proven leadership and coordination skills with the ability to quality assure an enumerator team
• Experience/understanding of Child Rights Programming and development
• Fluency in English, Hausa and other local languages required.

How to apply

Interested Applicants should provide a proposal covering the following aspects:

• Detailed response to the TOR

• Proposed methodology including full proposed sampling strategy

• Ethics and child safeguarding approaches, including any identified risks and associated mitigation strategies

• Proposed timelines

• Curriculum Vitae(s)

• Example of previous similar work

• Detailed budget, including daily fee rates, expenses, taxes etc.

• Police Certificates of Good Conduct – especially where there is primary data collection

  A Procurement Committee will score the documentations provided by the potential Consultant (s) based on Technical Expertise and Financials, on the basis of 70% and 30% respectively.

  As part of our ongoing Gender Responsive Procurement Initiatives, Consultants will be allocated 5% of the overall score if they meet one or more of the following:

• If headed up by a woman

• If the supplier is a women-owned business: A legal entity in any field that is more than 51% owned, managed, and controlled by one or more women.

• If the % of women in management positions is over 35%

• If % of women workers is 55% or above

• If robust gender equality initiatives/policies are in place and active.

  Please send your application to [email protected] on or before Monday the 7th of October 2024, referencing “EU ABEP Baseline Assessment” in the subject line.