National consultancy for enhancing participation and addressing parents, teachers, and learners’ behaviors to address the learning crisis. 5 Months, Kigali at UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund: (Deadline 31 July 2023)

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.

And we never give up.

For every child, Education

To learn more about UNICEF work in Rwanda, please visit the country website https://unicef.sharepoint.com/sites/RWA/ or watch this video about UNICEF work in Rwanda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7B91m5Yzoc

How can you make a difference?

Background:

Advocating for the rights of children to quality education and developing critical foundational skills is one of the top priority issues for UNICEF Rwanda.  Specifically, girls often lag due to structural and social norms barriers, and this makes them a big priority throughout the process. However, all children equally need a strong foundation in learning to benefit fully from their education. This milestone can only be achieved if tangible collaboration between parents/caregivers, teachers, and learners is prioritized; if teachers can change their teaching practices to ensure that education is child-centered, and learners feel safe; if the teaching profession is elevated; if the learning barriers for girls are removed; and meaningful participation of learners in the learning process is ensured.

There is a need for parents’ and community members’ participation in achieving quality learning outcomes and this calls for advocacy for greater family and community involvement in children’s learning. Family and community engagement allows parents, caregivers, and other community members to not only know what’s going on at school, but also to actively support children’s learning.

Global evidence indicates that programmes that make education-related information available to parents and/or students have increased learning outcomes at low cost. Providing parents with actionable guidance on how to be more involved in their child’s academic processes has improved learning outcomes for children and enhanced motivation to do better.

Teacher skills and motivation both matter in achieving great learning results. For students to learn, teachers must teach effectively, however, many education systems pay little attention to what teachers know or what they do in the classroom.

Regarding the elevation of the teaching profession, the Government of Rwanda (GoR) recently, took a bold decision to increase salaries for all teaching professionals by 40-88% on top of existing salaries. This has been hailed as a key motivating factor, which can easily influence more young people to join the promising profession.

In addition to this, special economic empowerment initiatives such as UMWARI SACCO and other incentives are very likely to change the attitude towards the teaching profession and attract more young people into the profession. There are also fee waivers, scholarships, and waivers for children of teachers to learn without paying tuition fees as well as various awards in recognition of work experience for qualified teachers in subjects such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

While progress is being made in improving the quality of education, addressing social norms and related barriers to equitable quality education, for girls, boys, children with disability and other disadvantaged children will also pay huge dividends for economic prosperity, gender equality, climate resilience, public health, and lasting peace and stability.  If every girl completed primary school, maternal deaths would decline by two-thirds. A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live past the age of 5; 50% more likely to be immunized; and twice as likely to go to school. If every girl received 12 years of schooling, teen pregnancies would plunge by two-thirds, and girls’ higher lifetime earnings would grow economies by as much as 30 trillion USD. For every additional year of schooling girls receive, their country’s resilience to climate disasters improves because educating girls has an impact beyond the individual, cascading into her family and her community and this is very true for Rwanda³.

 In addition to paying for school requirements, parents’ interest in ensuring regular attendance, homework completion and follow up with teachers enriches provides powerful enabling environment for learning.

In view of the existing evidence, UNICEF and partners are committed to ensuring parents and communities are engaged not only in addressing barriers to education but also in supporting children to progressively learn.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

Design and implement a 12-month holistic social and behavior change communication plan to engage and sensitize parents and communities to support learning for both girls and boys. The campaign aims to change attitudes and practices that hinder the participation of parents in supporting teachers to ensure children are progressively learning, elevate the prestige of the teaching profession; and continually advocate for removing the learning barriers for girls, particularly regarding STEM.

Key Tasks:

• Develop behavior change communication action plan focused on strengthening collaboration between parents, communities, and teachers for improved learning outcomes for girls and boys.
• Organize a series of national and sub-national dialogues (children, parents, students, and decision-makers), using the HCD approach to discuss barriers and co-create solutions and content to be disseminated throughout the campaign.
• Co-design and disseminating tips for the parents/caregivers on how to be part of a child’s learning process and for teachers on applying child-centered approaches.
• Lead storytelling initiatives about the importance of girls’ education/participation through documenting the stories of ‘positive deviants’ and ‘education champions.
• Capture children’s voices, especially most vulnerable (children with disabilities, children living in refugee settings, teen mothers etc.) from the selected areas of the country (“Voices of Hope” – working title) who will share their views about the importance of education, their aspirations and call their peers to continue schooling despite the existing challenges.
• Monitor and support implementation of behavior change SBC initiatives related to education led by partners.
• Design and implement a monitoring and evaluation framework to measure immediate results of each intervention under the campaign.
• Participate in technical meetings and workshops related to community engagement supported by other players to ensure alignment with UNICEF supported plans and behavior change communication messages.

Deliverables/Outputs:

• Finalized Inception report with clear action plan endorsed by UNICEF
• 2 Radio spots and 2 TVCs on tips produced by the contractor
• Selection criterion of the best positive deviants available, bearing in mind geographical location
• 5 stories of positive deviants documented by the contractor.
• M&E tools and report produced
• Final Report with follow up actions required

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Education, social/behavioural sciences, mass communication or another relevant field.

Professional background:

• A minimum of five three years of experience in implementing education, SBC related initiatives involving advocacy, social mobilization, and community participation; training in interpersonal communication, social mobilization, project management and Human Centred design.
• Previous experience in designing educational, learning through play and other similar initiatives.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, innovation, and leadership skills.
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Fluency in English and Kinyarwanda is a must.

 For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit  here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks: 

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.