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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

UNICEF has been operating in Zimbabwe since 1982. We are a team of passionate professionals committed to the protection and fulfillment of children’s rights. 

Supporting the Government’s vision of a prosperous  and  empowered upper-middle-income society, the country programme is aimed at contributing to sustainable socioeconomic development that provides all children, including adolescents, with opportunities to fulfil their potential, lead a healthy life, access quality learning and protection and meaningfully participate in society.

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https://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/work-us

How can you make a difference? 

UNICEF Zimbabwe is inviting applications for a national individual to provide an evaluation review of the integrated Primary and Secondary Fairs through Outreach.

BACKGROUND 

The Integrated Primary and Secondary School Outreach Fairs are a major part of the activities funded under the Teacher Effectiveness and Equitable Access for Children in Zimbabwe (TEACH) Programme to safeguard educational gains made over the last decade. TEACH was designed to sustain improvements made to learning outcomes and targets the poorest and most disadvantaged learners, including those with  disabilities. In its business case, the TEACH committed to supporting education in Zimbabwe with one of its key delivery area underscored as Enrolment of Children with Disabilities (CWDs) in primary and secondary education increased from 61,946 to 75,000 and improved progression rates.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has since 2019, conducted the Integrated Primary and Secondary Education Service Fairs through Community Outreach nationally as part of the strategy to transform its service delivery systems in identifying children with disabilities and enrolling them into education. These community service fairs were conducted in all the 10 provinces annually with each province directly being supported by TEACH through UNICEF.

The Integrated Primary and Secondary School Community Outreach Fairs are a community engagement platform to increase awareness on the education of Children with Disabilities (CWD), early childhood education (ECE), and other subgroups including adolescent girls and the Out of School Children (OOSC) on the need for quality education for all children. The outreach programme provided an opportunity for advocacy around issues that constituted barriers to the realisation of these children’s rights, especially the right to education. It also provided an opportunity for stakeholders to showcase their programmes through a cocktail of activities.

The TEACH Business case reflected flexibility in its design to ensure TEACH is aligned with Government of Zimbabwe priorities. To this end, TEACH is linked to the key primary and secondary education performance indicators on the SDGs and NDS1 that speak to (a) the proportion of school-aged children not attending school (b) the school dropout rate (c) reading and numeracy levels (d) safe learning environments and (e) inclusion and equity measures.

While Zimbabwe has made efforts towards inclusive education, there are bottlenecks associated with implementation which includes some limitations on data and its comparability due to improper identification of Children with Disabilities, delayed finalization of policies e.g., Inclusive Education and School Financing Policy, slow implementation of activities due to budget limitations and the inadequacy of special needs teachers particularly in resources centres. 

UNICEF’s Inclusive Education work with MoPSE seeks to address these limitations and challenges experienced by vulnerable, marginalised and children with disabilities through a series of activities focused on policy advocacy and change, and on systems strengthening and targeted programmes. Accordingly, the community outreach fairs have been an additional tool and platforms through which the government of Zimbabwe through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education promotes disability inclusion in the education system by addressing the identification of bottlenecks as well as limited opportunities for providing Children with Disabilities with customised support such as birth registration, on the spot clinical remediation and physiotherapy.

To raise awareness on the need for quality education for children with disabilities, Ministry personnel and stakeholders in all the ten provinces engaged their respective communities through the community outreach programme or “community service fairs”. Funding was disbursed to all provinces for outreach activities in the 72 districts. A combined model encompassing district, cluster meetings and road shows was adopted and rolled out in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

ASSIGNMENTS:

• Describe how the Integrated Primary and Secondary School Community Outreach Fairs were conducted nationally, including who was involved and with what efficacy.
• Establish the impact of the community service fairs at school level and nationally, including the extent to which the success achieved can be sustained, scaled or improved.
• Establish how many new Children with Disabilities and other vulnerable groups i.e., Out of School Children (OOSC), pregnant girls, adolescent and school going young mothers have enrolled in schools making references to Ministry’s available data from EMIS 2019 to 2023 and triangulated through District/School enrolment figures of Children with Disabilities and other subgroups, and justifying if these could be attributed to these fairs.
• Establish views on these fairs, from communities, children (including of various subgroups), teachers, provincial education principal psychologist, DSIs and the Head Office leadership including all Ministry departments involved with the enrollment of pupils in respect to impact, modality and viability.
• Outline the key take aways, challenges and recommendations from the integrated primary and secondary school community outreach fairs
• Establish views on these fairs, from communities, children (including of various subgroups), teachers, provincial education principal psychologist, DSIs and the Head Office leadership including all Ministry departments involved with the enrollment of pupils in respect to impact, modality and viability.
• Outline the key take aways, challenges and recommendations from the integrated primary and secondary school community outreach fairs

Major tasks and deliverables:

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

Education:

Master’s degree in Education, Development studies/or another relevant field.

Experience:

At least 5 years of work experience in education programme evaluation reviews assessments, programme development, management or planning

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

• Familiarity with Government of Zimbabwe procedures, and specifically the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education policies, systems and procedures.
• Previous experience of assessing education responses and interventions in Zimbabwe.
• General knowledge of Education Management Information Systems
• Ability to use gender-lens throughout the whole process.
• Inter relational skills in working with MoPSE officials. 
• Previous work with UNICEF/other UN agencies or other national, regional, or international institutions (public or private) developing high- quality products.

Language requirements:

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of the local language is an asset.

The detailed consultancy terms of reference is downloadable via this link  TOR_Evaluative review_Integrated Community Outreach Fairs-FINAL PDF.pdf

If interested and available to undertake the individual consultancy, please submit your application online and attach the required documents including the technical proposal and an all-inclusive financial proposal incorporating an approximate number of travel days for field (local) travel. 

Technical proposal: The Technical Proposal should articulate an understanding of the TOR and include the proposed Tasks/Milestones, Deliverables/Outputs, Timeline and level of effort by deliverable. The similar table provided in the TOR is indicative. Applicants may use the indicative table as a guide or deviate as per the proposed approach. The proposal should also cost-effectively propose the local travel proposed by the applicant to undertake the assignment.

Financial proposal: The Financial Proposal should include the costs (providing a daily rate as justification) for each task, including consultant fee, proposed travel costs and perdiem, communications costs and any other proposed cost.

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.