The Fundasaun
Alola Education and Literacy Program focuses on building capacity and
expanding opportunities for women and children to access quality
education in Timor-Leste. The program is comprised of three core
programs: the Scholarships Program which offers long-term, comprehensive
support to disadvantaged female students at secondary school and
university; the Teacher Training Program, concerned with providing
training and support to teachers across Timor-Leste in educational
curriculum and methodologies; and the Mobile Library Program, which
produces teaching tools for Timorese classrooms, tailored for children
learning in the Timor-Leste context.
In
2008, with a view to improving the access of Timorese children to
appropriate literacy resources, the Education and Literacy Program
developed a series of Tetun language readers for children, along with
bilingual classroom teaching aids in Tetun and Portuguese. The Program
has further facilitated the publication of three international
children’s picture books into Tetun with a view to providing a range of
Tetun-language materials. This agenda of resource development has
continued through 2012 with the production of 14 early literacy readers
in three mother-tongue languages and the facilitation of a large scale
literacy pack project which provided 75 Tetun-language children’s books
to each Primary School across Timor-Leste.
In
2013, the program will look to expand its provision of Pre-Primary and
Primary Teacher Training to ensure a greater number of teachers are
versed in early literacy and numeracy strategies and skills to make use
of related resources and facilitate learning using the children’s home
language.
In addition
to working with Alola Foundation, the program is also working with
Institutu Mary Mackillop on Parents educational outreach. Under this
initiative, the program seeks to engage parents’ further involvement in
children education through empowering them with a set of relevant skills
to enable them to help their children at home. Academic nurturing is
central to improving children literacy outcomes. This activity
complements the project’s other activities and ensure that they reach
their intended goals and objectives.
II. Summary of Assignment:TAF
is seeking to hire a qualified education expert with expertise
specifically in early grade reading. The consultant will be expected to
perform a final evaluation to the project. The evaluation will seek to
identify the impact that the tools and trainings developed under this
project has had in the project sites, by using relevant available
baseline data on early grade reading in Timor-Leste and data from the
project’s mid-term evaluation, as well as assessing the impacts of
parents educational outreach activity on perceived or real change in
children education. The consultant will present the key findings in a
final report submitted to TAF and in a workshop organized by the
Foundation at the end of the year which includes a series of
recommendations for future considerations.
The consultancy is based in Dili, Timor-Leste with travel to at least four districts covered by the project.
The Consultant(s) is required to perform the following tasks:
- Conduct
interviews with all the teachers who participated in the training
program at least from four districts (Dili, Liquica, Manatuto, and
Aileu);
- Conduct interviews with parents participated in parents educational outreach conducted by Institutu Mary Mackillop
- Conduct
stakeholder interviews and discussions about the project which include
TAF key staff, Fundasaun Alola and Institutu Mary Mackillop’s key staff,
Care International on their education baseline survey, and relevant
staff at the Ministry of Education
- Liaise
with Alola Foundation and Institutu Mary Mackillop (as sub-grantees of
the Project) to assess the impact of the learned teaching skills in
literacy and numeracy strategy together with using resource in terms of
changed perceptions and skills in teachers and parents, and increased
use of materials as teaching resources;
- Assess
levels of improvement in literacy among children whose teachers and
parents have undergone training using CARE baseline education survey to
measure the impact of this project.
- The
consultant is to assess the teacher training program curriculum and the
parents educational outreach activities, the effectiveness of the
methodologies of teacher training and the usefulness of the resource
packages in the enhancement of Children’s literacy and numeracy
absorption.
III. Deliverable- The
consultant is expected to produce an Evaluation Report at the end of
this assignment which will include assessment on the effectiveness of
teacher training and resource packs on children’s cognitive ability to
absorb basic literacy and numeracy skills. In addition, the report
should also contain recommendations on strategies to improve the project
activities and the expected impact it will have on children’s cognitive
ability to absorb basic literacy and numeracy skills.
- The
consultant is also expected to present the findings of the evaluation
to relevant stakeholders at a half-day workshop organized by the
Foundation in early December 2014.
IV. SupervisionThe
Consultant(s) will report to Mario Pinheiro as the focal point for the
project. All reports and authorizations will be signed off and
authorized by the Country Representative.
V. DurationThis
consultancy services is for 40 days. The expected date for the start
of the assignments is on September 9, 2014. Details of M&E are as
follows:
1. Week 1 and 2 (10 working days):Working
closely with the Asia Foundation, Alola education team and Institutu
Mary Mackillop, the Consultant will conduct a desk review on the ACR
objectives and activities. The Consultant will have access to existing
documents, methodologies and resource packages that has been developed
by Alola Foundation. Based on desk review, the Consultant develops
questioners for evaluation to targeted schools.
2. Week 3-6(20 working days ): Field workThe Consultant to conduct M&E to target schools in Liquisa, Manatuto, Dili and Aileu.
3. Week 7-8(10 working days ): ReportingBuilding
on from the result of the Mid-term evaluation of the project, the
Consultant is required to submit its M&E report to the Foundation.
The report should contain analysis of education tools develop by Alola
Foundation, the teaching methodologies, how the teachers use the tools
during the teaching processes, what is the impact of tools and teaching
methodologies introduced by the teachers and recommendation for the
improvement. In addition, the report should also examine the
effectiveness of Parents Educational Outreach conducted by Institutu
Mary Mackillop. The report should be less than 75 pages.
VI. QualificationCandidates
for the position must have at least a Master’s degree in early
education, with more than 5 years in early grade reading and literacy.
Experience working in developing country, especially in Timor-Leste is
highly desirable. Have good understanding of Timor-Leste Education
sector, Tetum or Bahasa Indonesia is desirable.
Preference
will be given to candidates who reside in Timor-Leste. Women are highly
encouraged to apply. Applicants are required to submit their RESUME
with at least three referees and an application letter to be considered
for this job. The application will be addressed to Mr. Mario Filomeno da
Costa Pinheiro with “Consultant for Final Evaluation” as the subject
line by hand delivery or through email to
mario.pinheiro@asiafoundation.orgApplication is closed by Monday September 1st, 2014. Only short-listed candidates will be acknowledged for further process.
