Detailed description of project Back
The Programme of Support to the Education Sector in Sierra Leone is a 3 year programme with a budget of 29 M EUR. It will take a targeted approach to addressing the challenges of teaching and management, and will contribute to the achievement of the Government’s Agenda for Prosperity and its goals of: i) Increasing equitable access to basic education; ii) Improving the quality of basic education teaching and learning, iii) Strengthening the governance and management capacity of the education system, including at the Directorate, District and School levels and at the Teacher Training Colleges.
The purpose of this contract is to provide the beneficiary country, Sierra Leone, and in particular the Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MEST) – inclusive of selected District Education Offices (DEOs), the Teaching Service Commission (TSC), and selected Teacher Colleges with technical assistance to deliver on strengthening of management capacity and provision of education services.
In compliance with the specific objectives of the Action Document for Support to the Education Sector in Sierra Leone (Annex 1 of the Commission Decision on the Annual Action Programme 2016 in favour of the Republic of Sierra Leone), the technical assistance aims to:
- Strengthen education system management in order to improve equity and quality;
- Improve primary school teaching and learning;
- Improve management and delivery of technical and vocational education;
- Improve equitable access to secondary education.
Through technical and administrative support, the contractor is expected to deliver the following results:
- Result 1: Transfer of technical competencies to counterparts in the Ministry (inclusive of the District Education Offices), Teaching Service Commission and Teacher Colleges;
- Result 2: Strengthened and more transparent personnel management and Human Resources functions in MEST;
- Result 3: Expansion of EMIS to include TVET, non-formal education and higher education, as well as learning outcomes;
- Result 4: Improved organization, content and budgeting of supervisory visits and in-service teacher training by District Education Offices, through planning and training support;
- Result 5: Support timely preparation and execution of programme estimates for central Ministry, Teaching Service Commission, District Education Office, and Teacher College activities and programmes, in line with the activities foreseen in the EU Action Document for Support to the Education Sector in Sierra Leone, i.e. rehabilitation of schools, design, development and production of teaching materials, etc.
Type of services provided
Management and coordination of the programme
- Provide overall management of the programme of support to the education sector in Sierra Leone in close collaboration with the MEST, the NAO and the EU Delegation;
- Coordinate all programme implementation processes, including monitoring of programme components and their respective activities;
- Provide support to Imprest Administrator and Imprest Accounting Officer of the Programme Estimates;
- Support the preparation of the Programme Estimates according to EU procedures and help ensure the correct implementation of these;
- Manage short term experts (STE) and ensure implementation of each STE’s tasks, for effective delivery of the programme’s results;
- Prepare all programme reports and ensure their timely submission to the MEST, the NAO and EU Delegation;
- Support MEST in taking leadership in policy dialogue and donor coordination.
Teacher Training
- Engage the MEST (inclusive of District Education Offices), Teacher Colleges, Teaching Service Commission, as appropriate, on teacher training strategies and programmes, to address existing challenges of unqualified and under-qualified teachers and provide the necessary technical guidance and support;
- Support assessment of the training needs of teachers;
- Assist the MEST, in collaboration with the Teaching Service Commission, in designing a training plan to include community teachers and teachers in schools.
Human Resource Development
- Support the TSC/Ministries in defining policy guidelines and tools for teacher management;
- Support the design of systems and procedures to ensure accurate and reliable personnel records and payroll management;
- Review and refine job descriptions for staff working in the education ministries and the TSC as necessary to remove overlaps / duplication particularly in the areas of responsibility and deliverables/expected output/ results;
- Support the improvement teacher recruitment process;
- Support the Education Ministries in dissemination of guidelines and the roll-out of the education decentralization plan to the local councils and schools.
Capacity Development
- Develop a written statement in collaboration with counterpart staff describing the transfer of technical skills to counterpart staff, with specific objectives and timelines;
- Review and refine job descriptions for staff working in MEST as necessary to remove overlaps / duplication and make more explicit and clear particularly in the areas of responsibility and deliverables/expected output/ results;
- Support the training of MEST (inclusive of District Education Office staff) as appropriate, including the development of targets and strategies around improvement of student learning outcomes;
- Support the training of Teacher Training College staff and teachers with a focus on improvement of student learning outcomes;
- Support the MEST (inclusive of District Education Offices) in dissemination of guidelines and the roll-out of the education decentralization plan to the local councils and schools.
Learning and teaching materials
- Support MEST (inclusive of District Education Offices) with procurement of relevant teaching and learning materials;
- Support design and preparation of detailed teaching scripts for use in teaching of reading and mathematics in the early grades;
- Support implementation of a randomized control trial of mother tongue instruction and learning outcomes in the early grades.
Main staff provided (free-lance experts):
- Team leader (632 w/d) (free-lance expert);
- Teacher Training Specialist (711 w/d) (free-lance expert);
- HR Specialist (528 w/d) (free-lance expert);
- Finance Officer (842 w/d) (free-lance expert).
