Job in Zimbabwe 2016: Zimbabwe Early Learning Assessment Consultancy at UN Children’s Fund
Employment at UN Children’s Fund as Consultant
Job ID: #1735891
Career categories: Program/Project Management
Country: Zimbabwe
City: Harare
Organization: UN Children’s Fund
Theme: Education
Job years of experience: 10+ years
Job type: Consultancy
Close Date: 27 Oct 2016
UNICEF Zimbabwe is inviting proposals from individual National or International
consultants for the provision of Technical Assistance for the Zimbabwe Early Learning
Assessment
Background
The Zimbabwean government, through its Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, instituted the Zimbabwe Early Learning Assessment (ZELA) programme in 2012, first as a baseline and later as an annual assessment of learner performance in English, Mathematics and an indigenous language (Shona/Ndebele) post Grade 2. The ZELA came as part of the Education Transition Fund (ETF) which was introduced by the government with the support of funding partners as a part of a recovery package following the socio-economic challenges Zimbabwe experienced in 2004 to 2009. Among other interventions, the ETF programme provided textbooks for core subjects to all schools. As one of its major aims, the ZELA sought to establish the impact of textbook provision to schools on learner outcomes.
The ZELA programme is run by the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC), a body that is charged with the responsibility of running national examinations for the school system in Zimbabwe. However, noting the gap in technical skills within ZIMSEC to conduct such an assessment, technical support was put in place through ETF. The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was chosen to provide that support for the period 2012 to 2015. Apart from ZELA test administration, data analysis and report writing, part of ACER mandate was to build capacity within ZIMSEC through training to enable ZIMSEC to carry on with ZELA beyond the period of technical support. Since the departure of ACER, 2016 is the first year for ZIMSEC to carry out ZELA, together with MoPSE, without technical support from ACER. While ZIMSEC is comfortable with data collection, it requires technical support with data analysis and report writing in order to come up with a quality report. In addition, ZIMSEC requires further strengthening in skills capacity in the area of data handling, hence the need for this consultancy.
Introduction
ZELA is a curriculum-based assessment that is administered to a nationwide, random stratified sample of students in the first term of Grade 3. It measures students’ learning outcomes through the end of Grade 2. The specific objective of ZELA is to answer the following questions:
- How do Zimbabwean pupils perform in Mathematics and the languages tests, and is there a noticeable pattern of change over time?
- What are the relationships of certain pupil, teaching and school variables with performance on tests of Mathematics and languages at the beginning of Grade 3 in Zimbabwe?%