Senior National Consultancy to harmonize the identification, assessment and referral tools for children with disabilities/ Special Education Needs, Kigali Rwanda, 3 months (Work from home) – For Rwandan Nationals Only at UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund: (Deadline 19 July 2023)

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Background: 

Rwanda has a comprehensive Special Needs and Inclusive Education Policy that promotes the inclusion of children with disabilities in the mainstream education system. The policy highlights the lack of proper identification and assessment as the main challenge affecting the education of children with disabilities in Rwanda. Many children with disabilities are not identified early and appropriately supported due to the lack of standardized and formal identification and assessment tools and procedures for access to specialized services such as clinic assessments and required assistive devices.

To address this challenge, several initiatives have been undertaken by different education development partners: The World Bank, MINEDUC and VSO have all developed identification and assessment tools for children with disabilities. However, the process and the procedures for the tools purposed are different, and comprehensive and reliable data on children with disabilities/ SNE remains unavailable.

Rwanda’s Basic Education Board, in collaboration with the World Bank, developed the Special Needs and Inclusive Education Data Management Information System (SNIE MIS) to collect data on children with disabilities. The SNIE MIS was meant to complement the School Data Management Information System, which collects limited data on children with disabilities. However, some gaps in the SNIE system were highlighted during its pilot phase and need to be addressed.

UNICEF has also supported the Ministry of Education in developing a paper-based Identification, Assessment and Referral of children with disabilities to various social services. The referral tools and system were piloted in seven districts.

To avoid unnecessary duplication and overlapping identification, assessment, and referral of children with disabilities tools and procedures, UNICEF is supporting the Ministry of Education to hire an expert who will provide technical assistance in the harmonization of the identification and assessment tools to help in the enhancement of the existing SNIE MIS.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment: 

Purpose:

The purpose of the consultancy is to enhance the SNIE MIS using harmonized tools and procedures for the identification, assessment, and referral of children with disabilities.

Objectives 

The objectives of this assignment are to:

1. To assess the effectiveness and utilization of the implemented processes and tools for identification, assessment, and referral of children with disabilities to social services to guide necessary improvement.
2. Review, harmonize, and improve tools for school-level identification and assessment of children with disabilities and their referral to needed social services.
3. Produce training materials and supplementary guide materials to train head teachers and teachers on the tools and processes for the identification and assessment of children with disabilities and special educational needs.

3. Key Tasks:

The selected candidate will lead the following tasks, working closely with the MINEDUC technical team, UNICEF, development partners, other relevant stakeholders, and the teams working on the assessment of the impact of the UNICEF-MINEDUC IAR model and the Harmonization of Identification, Assessment, and Referral System for children with disabilities.

• Conduct an assessment of the effectiveness of the process and procedures for identification, assessment, and referral of children with disabilities.

In 2019-2020, The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with UNICEF, developed an education referral system for Rwanda to guide individuals at school and different levels of district administration to have accountability to support those children in accessing various social services. Humanity and Inclusion, with support from UNICEF, has piloted an assessment and referral system in seven districts since 2020. Periodic reports from Humanity and Inclusion and programmatic field visits indicated an improvement in school attendance for children with disabilities as a result of proper placement and improvements in educational, social, and health supports for children with disabilities.

A systematic assessment of the referral process and procedures piloted in the seven districts should be carried out by the consultant to document its effectiveness and inform necessary improvements before replication across the country.

• Review existing identification, assessment, and referral of model tools for children with disabilities.

In addition to the UNICEF-MINEDUC Referral System, the VSO-Building Learning Foundations (BLF) project has also developed in 2019 an assessment tool for in school children with Learning difficulties. The tool has been piloted in all schools where the BLF project has been implemented. Evidence shows a positive effect of the identification and assessment of children with disabilities on education.

There are many other initiatives around developing a system for identification, assessment, and referral to support the education of children with disabilities in Rwanda. However, these initiatives are scattered, and the tools are not harmonized.

The consultant will review all the tools available, and in collaboration with the Ministry of Education team, UNICEF, and other Development Partners, he/she will develop one harmonized tool for identification, assessment, and referral for children with disabilities. The Key deliverable at this stage will be the availability of a harmonized tool for identification, assessment, and referral of children with disabilities.

• Facilitate consultations with relevant stakeholders.

Based on the outcomes of the review of different tools, the consultant shall organize a validation workshop to validate the harmonized identification, assessment, and referral tools and procedures. The validation workshop

shall engage the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, and other relevant stakeholders who have been involved in the development of the tools. The key deliverable at this stage is a validated harmonized identification, assessment, and referral tool.

• Develop training material and a supplementary guide on the use of identification and assessment tools.

The task involves creating training materials and additional guidance for utilizing the identification and assessment tool. Once the identification and assessment tool is approved, the consultant will develop straightforward training materials and a facilitator guide. The Ministry of Education and REB staff will use these resources to train teachers on how to use the tool effectively. Additionally, the consultant will produce a concise guidance document outlining the procedures and processes for identifying, assessing, and referring children with disabilities in school settings. The main deliverable will be the training material and user guide for the identification and assessment tool and procedures.

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks/Milestone:

• Assess the effectiveness of the existing identification and assessment and referral processes and procedures.
• Support the harmonization of the tools and procuress for identification, assessment, and referral (IAR) tools of children with disabilities
• Develop training material and supplementary guide on the use of identification, assessment, and referral system

Deliverables/Outputs:

Payment 1: 40%

• Report of the assessment available

Payment 2: 30%

• Harmonized and validated tools and procedures for IAR for children with disabilities

Payment 3: 30%

• Training material and user guide submitted

Selection Criteria

Applications shall be assessed based on their technical and financial proposals. Maximum scores for technical and financial applications will be 75% and 25%, respectively.

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in social sciences with specialization in or experience in special needs education or related work.
• A minimum of eight years of relevant work experience including in programs that promote inclusive education.
• Training certificate in the field of Special Needs and Inclusive education is required.
• Fluency in English is a must, and knowledge of French and Kinyarwanda is an asset.

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 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: 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy 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. Consultants 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.