EIP Tool Development Consultant

TERMS OF REFERENCE

1. About the Aga Khan Foundation

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is an Agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a group of private, non-denominational development agencies that share a mission to improve the living conditions and opportunities for marginalized communities across some target countries in Africa and Asia. AKF was established by His Highness the Aga Khan in Switzerland in 1967 and began working in East Africa in 1974. Globally, AKF seeks sustainable solutions to long-term problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and ill-health, with special emphasis on the needs of rural communities in mountainous, coastal, and other resource-poor areas. In East Africa, AKF responds to local and regional priorities by developing and implementing effective programming, measuring, and documenting results and sharing lessons with governments, donors, and development actors to influence policy and practice. AKF operates a multi-sectoral portfolio that includes programming in Education, Economic Inclusion, Civil Society, Health and Early Childhood Development.

1. Background

AKF have worked in education in East Africa for over 30 years with the objective of ensuring all boys, girls, and young adults are equipped with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values they need to interact effectively with the world and be contributing members of society.

The Education Improvement Programme (EIP) was developed to target the three critical challenges of access, quality, and systems improvement. Its primary objective is to equip the next generation of children and young people with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to interact effectively with the world and become contributing members of society. The EIP team in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda collaborated to co-design and develop our strategy to drive education improvement across the region to ensure equitable access, improved holistic learning outcomes, and secure learning environments at scale.

The six technical areas targeted through this programmatic approach are:

Teacher Professional Development

1. Inclusive Pedagogical Leadership and School Management
2. Civic and community Accountability and Engagement
3. Parent Participation
4. Civil Society Organization Partnership and Development
5. System Strengthening

To date, the Theory of Change – which depicts how the EIP develops proof of concept for solutions across the EIP six programmatic areas and scales these for impact – has been finalized. In addition, outcomes and outcome indicators for each of the six programmatic areas have been established. The purpose of this consultancy is to build on these components to develop a suite of purpose-built tools to be utilized regionally across the programme.

1. Consultant scope of work

Based on the EIP Theory of Change and new EIP M&E Process Guide:

• Draft tools, streamlining and incorporating existing tools where necessary/possible, that are consistent with the outcomes and indicators developed by the EIP tools to define and measure the intended outcomes within each segment.
• Ensure alignment across the regional portfolio to ensure that the tools developed produce comparable data across the portfolio.
• Map the tools against EIP indicators and outcomes.
• Develop indicator reference sheets using AKF template, providing calculation logic linked to the appropriate tool(s) and other key details for each indicator.

1. Key deliverables

Deliverables will include the following:

1. Teacher competency framework
2. Tool to measure teacher knowledge, skills, attitudes and values (KSAV)
3. Tool to measure school leader KSAV
4. Tool to measure parent KSAV
5. Tool to measure community KSAV
6. Tool to measure CSO staff KSAV
7. Tool to measure education system leaders KSAV
8. Tool to measure school environment quality
9. Tool to measure classroom environment quality
10. Tool to measure teaching and learning process quality
11. Tool to measure pedagogical leadership activities provided by school leader (incl. questions about school development plan)
12. Tool to measure community accountability and governance activities provided by school (incl. BOM/SMC) + community participation in these
13. Tool to measure parent participation activities provided by school
14. Tool to measure parent satisfaction with school management
15. Tool to measure parent participation in children’s learning (incl. providing resources, taking part in learning activities, understanding/tracking learning)
16. Tool to measure government agencies’ self-reported improvement in technical capacity and motivation to support and monitor schools
17. Tool to measure schools’ experience of LGA support
18. Tool to measure local education officer views on LGA support
19. Indicator reference sheets for each indicator
20. Work with other partners on digitization (AKF to be as precise on expectations as possible at this point in time)
21. Handover note for AKF outlining what has been provided, how data from tools can be analyzed to capture the outcome indicators and any notes on further refinement/thinking required

N.B. It is NOT expected for this consultant to be a graphic design expert or produce the final product in high design.

1. Work Plan

It is expected for this scope of work to require approximately 120 days of time. Exact timelines on deliverables will be finalized during inception. A tentative timeline is as follows:

• Inception workshop week of August 26th
• Three tools produced for feedback by September 23rd
• All 17 draft tools completed by November 18th
• Indicator reference sheets completed by December 2nd
• Final tools completed by December 9th

1. Criteria for selection

It is expected that the successful consultant/organization will have:

• Subject matter expertise in education, including knowledge of relevant theories, methodologies, and best practices in education programming.
• Proficiency in evaluation and assessment methodologies, including the ability to design robust evaluation frameworks to measure the impact and effectiveness of education programs.
• Experience working in the education sector and evidence of experience with tool development
• Evidence of excellent English language writing skills
• Proven analytical skills
• Ability to work under tight timelines