Job Description

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Purpose of the Assignment

• The consultancy will assist the Education section in conducting an assessment of textbook availability and use by students and teachers in public primary schools.
• The specific objectives of the assessment are to: a) investigate the officially defined processes of how the required numbers of copies of textbooks are supposed to be requested from states, how the textbooks are to be printed and distributed, and how these processes are being undertaken in reality, b) assess availability of textbooks in classrooms and schools and identify factors contributing to unavailability. The findings will inform the government partners to take corrective actions to ensure that all primary school students and teachers have access to required textbooks.

Assignment Tasks

• Conduct a literature review.
• Conduct meetings with national government/donor.
• Prepare the inception report based on desk review and discussions with UNICEF
• Meeting with the state SUBEB/LGEA officials (in 5 states)
• Conduct data collection. Verification and cleaning of the collected data.
• Compile and analyse collected data, and prepare a draft assessment report and share it with UNICEF.
• Prepare presentation materials to share the assessment results, facilitate and present in the Dissemination Meeting
• Finalize assessment report integrating feedback from stakeholders meeting

Expected Deliverables

• Finalized list and folder of pooled materials collected during the literature review.
• Inception report
• A draft assessment report
• Presentation material
• Report of the Dissemination Meeting
• Final assessment report

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Education, Social Sciences and or related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience and expertise in research/review design and data processing and analysing, especially in education and school context.
• Minimum of 8 years’ progressive professional experience in the area of development research.
• Experience of conducting qualitative and quantitative project reviews in development environments. Vast experience in human rights based approaches and result based management would be an added advantage.
• Expertise in evaluating primary school education programs in Nigeria is a distinct advantage.
• Fluency in English language is essential.
• Strong understanding of the education context in Nigeria is highly desirable.
• Excellent conceptualization, analytical and writing skills in English.