National Consultant - Support Curriculum and Instructional Design at the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: National Consultant to Support Curriculum and Instructional Design for Implementation of Learning Passport Platform Initiative (one for Mathematics and one for English Language) (6 months)

Job no: 538322
Location: Nigeria
Contract Type: Consultancy
Level: Consultancy
Categories: Education, Monitoring and Evaluation, Planning, Consultancy, Programme Management

For Every Child, Education / Purpose of Activity
The Learning Passport, a partnership between UNICEF, Microsoft, Cambridge, and supported by the Boston Consulting Group, has been established to, 1) provide local, contextualized content with a supplementary library of global content, mapped together via research by Cambridge; 2) provide a platform to serve this content to children and youth online or offline, via a platform being developed by Microsoft, and 3) with an individualized record of learning for a user, that is portable across physical and digital borders. The Learning passport, as an extraordinary emergency response, will create country-level sites available that would like to make access to curriculum and learning materials available for students with connectivity both at school and at home.

The envisioned digital platform aims to enhance continued engagement with families and parents on learning at home by providing practical resources and materials that can be applied in home settings. The envisioned digital platform aims to enhance continued engagement with families and parents on learning at home by providing practical resources and materials that can be applied in home settings. Its second aim is to strengthen professional development opportunities and facilitate collaboration between educators at preschool, primary and secondary education levels, and other staff on sharing ideas, best practices and activities that can be implemented in schools.

COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique challenge for Nigeria's education system and the emerging situation is going to transform the way public education is being delivered ever before. With this new normal, education system both private and public is being prepared to deliver blended form of classroom- both face-to-face and through using online digital platforms. In Nigeria, there have been efforts by governments, private sector and key education stakeholders to promote continued learning and bridge potential learning gaps. These efforts range from large-scale, low tech solutions that do not require internet-enabled devices (radio and television), to high tech alternatives (virtual classrooms, video conferencing, animated lessons and online resources libraries) that require internet-enabled devices.

In short, while the key focus of this initiative is learning, quality and portability for children whose education has been disrupted by emergencies, the medium and long-term goal is to help establish a quality system of online and offline education, collaboration and support to children and parents.

Scope of Work
Under the overall supervision of the UNICEF Nigeria Education programme section, guidance of Learning Passport Global Program Manager and in close cooperation with Director ICT of the Federal Ministry of Education, Nigeria, an individual consultant is required to provide the following services:

Content Development and Management:

• Support overall content development, in close collaborations with FME, UNICEF Nigeria Country Office and Global Learning Passport Team;
• Digitize locally relevant content (as decided by the Federal Ministry of Education and the UNICEF CO) for deployment on the Learning Passport.
• Develop guidance on content quality for teachers, teachers training programs, formal and non-formal education, in line with the guidance to be provided by the Global Learning Passport Team;
• Works with the Learning Passport program team to design and develop Learning Passport compliant e-learning content.
• Develop instructor guides, student guides, and Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. ​
• Map needs and requirements of different user groups.
• Map available sources of quality content enabling its utilization and sharing
• Review open source content for students, teacher training, formal and non-formal education available through Learning passport
• Support establishing of the process for content adaptation and translation
• Review and test material with relevant internal teams and stakeholders. Integrate changes into revised content and design.

Support coordination with national and international stakeholders:

• Maintains regular communication with UNICEF Country office and Global Learning Passport manager.
• Maintains regular communication with all relevant national counterparts, including civils society, academia, and institutions
• Share best practices between Learning Passport participating countries and other countries in the region with similar efforts.
• Provide final report including recommendations for further platform development

Key Deliverables
Content development and management:

• Roadmap for review, adapt, localisation of quality digital content materials developed
• Mapping of quality digital content conducted, and information shared with all key actors and stakeholders
• Instructors' and parents' guides developed and adapted to local context
• Content developed/adapted, reviewed for all education levels, non-formal education, and teacher training
• Support provided to users (teachers, students, parents) at key moments of engagement
• Coordination and supervision of the Learning Passport team conducted
• Facilitate in uploading of digital content
• Monthly monitoring progress report on content digitalization and operationalization of digital learning platform

Support coordination with national and international stakeholders:

• Maintains regular communication with UNICEF Country office and Global Learning Passport manager.
• Maintains regular communication with all relevant national counterparts, including civils society, academia, and institutions
• Shares best practices between Learning Passport participating countries and other countries in the region with similar efforts.

Other activities needed to support the purpose of this contract:

• Logistics support provided for meetings/interviews/focus groups with actors and stakeholders
• Other relevant support provided as per need.

Deliverables - Timelines:

• Roadmap for review, adapt, localisation of quality digital content materials developed - 15 April 2021
• Mapping of quality digital content conducted, and information shared with all key actors and stakeholders, monthly progress report - 15 May 2021
• Instructors' and parents' guides developed and adapted to local context, monthly progress report - 15 June 2021
• Content developed/adapted, reviewed for all education levels, non-formal education, and teacher training, Facilitate in uploading of digital content, monthly progress report - 15 July 2021
• Support provided to users (teachers, students, parents) at key moments of engagement, monthly progress report - 15 August 2021
• Coordination and supervision of the Learning Passport team conducted, monthly progress report - 30 Sept 2021.

Requirements
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have:

• An advanced university degree (Master's or higher) in Computer Science / Education, preferably in curriculum design and alternative learning program, or any other Social Science degree.
• At least five (5) years of professional work experience in content development, education technology, formal and non-formal education, teacher training, e-learning and distance learning.
• At least two years of proven experience in project management/programme coordination, involving multiple stakeholders.
• Excellent knowledge of information management systems.
• *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with two additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.

All applicants will be screened against qualifications and requirements set above. Candidates fully meeting all the requirements will be further evaluated based on the criteria below:

• Technical Criteria - Interview – 70 % of total evaluation– max. 70 points:
  • Education: 20 points
  • Previous experience: 25 points
  • Technical questions at the interview: 25 point
  • Only candidates who obtained at least 70% of points from the technical part (who will score at least 49 points) will be qualified for considering for financial proposal evaluation.
• Financial Criteria - 30 % of total evaluation – max. 30 points.

For every Child, you demonstrate:

• UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA)
• To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Application Closing Date
5th March, 2021. W. Central Africa Standard Time.