Independent Evaluation for Dirasa Project Pilot

Detailed description of project Back

According to the Child-Focused Rapid Assessment (CFRA)5 conducted by UNICEF in April 2021, children are missing out on education. As per the 2020-2021 Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP), the number of Syrian children out of school increased from 55% to 63% between 2020 and 2021 (a total of 445,000 children). The total number of Lebanese children out of school is estimated to be 257,000 (22% of the Lebanese school-aged population), bringing the total to approximately 700,000 children (37% of the total school-aged population).

To help deal with these challenges, UNICEF Lebanon has developed the Dirasa Programme, a whole-system approach featuring multiple and flexible pathways as a bridge that facilitates the re-entry for 100,000 marginalised out-of-school children and adolescents. The first phase or inception phase of Dirasa programme was launched in February 2022, successfully enrolling 5,000 children (200 are Lebanese Children in addition to 400 children with disabilities) in 19 private schools across all the 8 governorates in Lebanon. Based on lessons learned from the inception phase, activities will be scaled up from October 2022 to 250 schools, targeting approximately 51,000 out-of-school children (OOSC).

This evaluation is being conducted for the purposes of accountability, learning and to inform future programming through evidence-based planning. The evaluation will also generate recommendations to inform the design of future phases of the programme. This evaluation will assess the results achieved during the inception phase of the Dirasa programme and evaluate what worked well and what has to be adjusted in the upscale phase of the programme. Within this framework, the evaluation will achieve the following results:

• Provide an independent assessment of the UNICEF Lebanon Dirasa programme in terms of design, implementation, and results achievement with a particular emphasis on its contribution to Lebanese Education sector results on access and equity, equity, and efficiency;
• Critically measure and assess the overall relevance, effectiveness, and coherence of the UNICEF Dirasa programme during its inception phase;
• Analyse the factors that affected progress towards results and capture challenges, lessons learned, and success factors during the inception phase;
• Provide strategic learning and recommendations aimed at informing the upscale phase of the programme design and implementation by UNICEF Lebanon. The evaluation should focus on providing more information on what has worked or not and why, what implementation strategies has proved to be effective and what has to be adjusted for the upscale phase.

Type of services provided

• Drafting of an Inception Report outlining the theory-based contribution analysis to be employed, as well as the required data collection tools, and presentation to the reference group detailing;
• Data collection through interviews, focus group discussions, school visits, and document study, including a provisional analysis during the in-country mission;
• PowerPoint presentation of the main preliminary findings and conclusions to the Key Stakeholders; to be presented and discussed towards the end of the field mission;
• Draft report presenting all the findings of the evaluation (meeting UNICEF evaluation report standards and GEROS), and clearly numbering each of the finings, recommendations and conclusions;
• Final report of no more than 50 pages integrating all the comments.

Main staff provided:

• Team Leader (45 w/d);
• National Education Expert (30 w/d).