National Consultant to provide Capacity support to Education Sector Coordination providing Secretariat services, Harare, Zimbabwe, 200 days (Open to Zimbabwe Nationals Only)
Apply now
Job no: 582609
Contract type: Consultant
Duty Station: Harare
Level: Consultancy
Location: Zimbabwe
Categories: Education
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.
For more information about UNICEF Zimbabwe please click here
You can also access and explore all new UNICEF vacancies and create job alerts via the UNICEF Zimbabwe website link below:
https://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/work-us
How can you make a difference?
UNICEF Zimbabwe is inviting applications for a national individual consultant to provide Capacity support to Education Sector Coordination providing Secretariat services for Education Coordination Group and the Education Partners Steering Committee.
PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The purpose of this assignment is to provide support and capacity to MoPSE coordination role in the Education Coordination Group and Education Partners Steering Committees.
BACKGROUND
The education sector in Zimbabwe operates under a structured governance framework designed to enhance coordination, policy dialogue, and effective implementation of key programmes. At the core of this framework is the Education Coordination Group (ECG), which serves as the primary national platform for multi-stakeholder engagement on strategic and policy issues in the education sector. The ECG is supported by technical working groups that feed into policy discussions, the Education Partners Steering Committee (formerly the GPE/TEACH Steering Committee), and the Implementation Committees for both the TEACH and GPE grants.
This governance structure is instrumental in reducing transaction costs by promoting harmonized planning, ensuring that meetings are well-prepared, and that relevant, up-to-date information is shared efficiently. Additionally, the system facilitates the timely preparation and dissemination of meeting minutes to all stakeholders, contributing to transparency and accountability.
While the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) is mandated to lead and coordinate this governance structure, some challenges have been identified—particularly in secretariat functions and overall coordination. To fill this gap, UNICEF has assumed a de facto secretarial role. However, this arrangement presents a conflict of interest, as UNICEF also serves as the Grant Agent for GPE funding and the Fund Manager for the TEACH grant. As a result, there is a recognized need to disaggregate UNICEF’s operational and coordination roles to preserve the integrity of governance processes and ensure impartial facilitation.
The ECG, chaired by the Honourable Minister of Education, brings together a broad and diverse group of stakeholders, including MoPSE senior management, civil society organizations, private sector partners such as the Higher life Foundation and the Roger Federer Foundation, and development partners including the FCDO, World Bank, and UN agencies like UNICEF and UNESCO. This inclusive structure provides a sector-wide framework that aligns external support with national education priorities and strengthens collective accountability and ownership.3.2 The GPE/TEACH Steering Committees (SC) are responsible for making key decisions for each programme. Further, the SC will provide technical advice regarding practical implementation of the GPE and TEACH programme.
As the GPE and TEACH programmes have different mechanisms and reporting requirements, the SC will be held as ONE meeting to reduce transaction costs but will be done in two parts. The GPE SC will focus on GPE issues, decisions, reviews, and approvals and the TEACH SC will focus on TEACH issues, decisions, reviews, and approvals.
The meeting will alternate starting with either GPE or TEACH and in the subsequent quarter the order will be reversed. Full details are available in the Governance structure document for sector dialogue in MOPSE
Through the System Capacity Grant of the GPE, the sector can develop the capacity of the MoPSE in coordination. The main purpose of the System Capacity Grant is to ensure that the education system is reinforced and provides an equity-focused leadership which creates conducive environment to facilitate the achievements of equitable access to relevant and competence driven primary, secondary, and non-formal quality learning opportunities and to ensure the GPE grants in Zimbabwe can be robustly and effectively supported and monitored.
The SCG sub-objectives is to
i) To provide support capacity strengthening to MoPSE, especially regarding factors that enable system transformation.
ii) To enhance, as part of the GPE 2025 operating model, enabling factors for strong education systems: (1) volume, equity, and efficiency of domestic finance; (2) gender responsive sector planning, policy, and monitoring; (3) data and evidence; and (4) sector coordination.
iii) To provide support on activities that include the enabling factor of volume, equity, and efficiency of domestic finance so that it moves from being high to medium as identified in the ITAP assessment.
iv) To provide support to make progress in these critical areas, according to their unique needs and context.
The SCG is focusing on upstream work in education sector, and not on service delivery as it could be under outcome 2 and 3 of Partnership Compact, to ensure the fundamental strategic work on data, planning, management monitoring and financing in education are covered in an inclusive and gender-responsive way for systemwide impact. It has three windows, and this assignment relates to window three: Strengthen capacity, adapt, and learn, to implement and drive results at scale and specifically to 3.3 Capacity support to MoPSE coordination role in the Education Coordination Group and sector steering committees for TEACH and GPE programmes.
SCOPE of Work
Under the guidance of the ECG and Co-chairs the consultant performs the following duties:
Secretariat services:
- Act as the focal point for the ECG and Education Partners Steering Committee (EPSC)
- Maintain updated contact lists of all ECG members and (EPSC)
- Manage correspondence, meeting notices and internal communications
- Support in the planning and monitoring and review processes
- Coordinate feedback and input from members for sector documents and policies
Meeting coordination
- Coordinate ECG and EPSC meetings including logistics( physical or virtual), scheduling, invitationsand participant follow-up
- Draft meeting agendas in consultation with chair and core leads, ensuring alignment with sector priorities and emerging issues
- Prepare and circualte meeting documenation ahead of time (e.g., background notes, minutes from previous meetings and reports)
- Record and produce accurate,concise minutes of each meeting, capturing key decisions, actions and recomendations.
- Track and support follow-up on agreed action points arising from meetings.
- Maintain a structured digital archive of agendas, minutes, attendance and action trackers.
Annual meeting calendar and plan of activities
- Develop and maintain a consolidated calendar for ECG and partner meetings and key education sector events
- Ensure regular updates to the calendar based on consultations
- Provide support to the Joint Monitoring and Joint sector review coordination and minuting
Capacity building
- Train of the MoPSE staff to perform the sector secretarial roles.
- Carry out in conjunction with the MOPSE, any induction of new members and training of staff to take minutes.
- Assist Chair/co-chairs with identifying training, proper induction and orientation required.
|
Tasks/Milestone:
|
Deliverables/Outputs: |
Timeline |
|
Inception and orientation Provide an inception report highlighting how to implement the secretarial and coordination role
|
Inception Report with workplan and deliverables |
October 2025 10 days 5% |
|
Preparation of the 2026 Annual Calendar Provide the annual calendar with all the ECG, EPSC, and key MoPSE activities
|
Final ECG and partner calendar developed in consultation with stakeholders |
February 2025 10 days 5% |
|
Quarter 4 2025 ECG Meetings, EPSC and Implementation
|
Minutes of the ECG and EPSC meeting circulated Agenda of the ECG and EPSC Action points from minutes of the ECG and EPSC followed up. JMV and JSR reports |
December 2025 15% 30 days |
|
Capacity support Train of the MoPSE staff to perform the sector secretarial roles. Carry out in conjunction with the MOPSE, any induction of new members and training of staff to take minutes. Assist Chair/co-chairs with identifying training, proper induction and orientation required. Assist the ECG and EP SC meetings with annual assessment |
Templates for agenda, minutes, action tracker developed and shared coaching and /guidance to MoPSE focal points on coordination tasks Training schedules Training registers |
April 2026 10 days 5% |
|
Biannual ECG 2026 Meetings, EPSC and Implementation
|
Minutes of the 2 ECG and 2 EPSC meeting circulated Agenda of the 2ECG and 2EPSC Action points from the 2 ECG and 2 EPSC followed up. JMV report |
June 2026 30% 60 days |
|
Quarter 3 and 4 2026 Meetings, EPSC and Implementation
|
Minutes of the 2 ECG and 2 EPSC meeting circulated Agenda of the 2ECG and 2EPSC Action points from the 2 ECG and 2 EPSC followed up. JMV and JSR reports |
October 2026 30% 60 days |
|
Reporting
|
Final consultancy report summarizing achievements, challenges and recommendations. Complete digital archive of ECG and Partner documents and handover notes to incoming secretariat |
November 2026 10% 20 days |
|
Minimum Qualification required: Enter Disciplines: Education Management, Policy and Leadership Development Studies
Languages: English / Local Language is an added advantage |
Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:
|
|
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Education:
-
Advanced university degree from a recognized academic institution in Education Management, Policy and Leadership orDevelopment Studies.
Experience:
At least 5 years of working in Education Sector Leadership, Planning or Coordination
- Expert knowledge in roles and responsibilities in managing committee meetings
- Good communication and writing skills
- Strong organisational capacity
- Ability to work well with variety of stakeholders (Government senior officials, donors, partners, UN agencies)
- Strategic meeting Management and track record of timely delivery
- Understanding of meeting protocol
- Strong governance
- Written and spoken fluency in English required and knowledge of main local languages (Shona and Ndebele) is an added advantage.
ToR Capacity support to Education Sector Coordination.pdfTechnical 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.
Advertised: South Africa Standard Time
Deadline: South Africa Standard Time