- INTRODUCTION
The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) is a network of Civil Society Organizations registered under the Registrar of Societies Act 119 of the Laws of Zambia on 3rd July, 2002 on certificate number ORS/102/35/2581. The organization currently has 78 Member Organizations comprising of Community Based Organizations, Faith Based Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations and Teacher Trade Unions. The Member Organisations work in different parts of the country and in different sub-sectors of education. ZANEC’s mandate is to coordinate civil society advocacy for quality, equitable and inclusive education for all Zambians.
ZANEC’s vision is ‘A sustainable and inclusive education system that responds to national aspirations and fosters an environment for self-fulfillment. The mission of the Coalition is to promote quality and inclusive education for all, through influencing of policy, consensus building, holding duty bearers accountable, and strengthening the capacities of stakeholders in the education sector.
2.0 BACKGROUND
The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) advocates for quality learner outcomes through provision of a good, equitable learning environment and sufficient, efficient and timely service delivery in the Education and Skills Sector. As a strategy to promote access to education for all Zambians, ZANEC identified gender as one of the key cross cutting issues, in particular the need for achieving gender parity and retention in the sector. Gender parity at lower primary education has almost been achieved with current data showing a parity of 1.02 by 2018. However, less females are accessing education at higher levels where the gender parity has remained stagnant at 0.85. There are several factors that take away adolescent girls from the education system including child marriages and pregnancies, poor water and sanitation facilities in schools and long distances coupled with inadequate boarding facilities in most schools. Sadly, Zambia continues to record high numbers of pregnancies among female learners with current figures showing that 11, 453 and 3, 576 girls get pregnant at primary and secondary school level annually respectively. There is urgent need to seriously look into the challenges of implementing the Re-entry Policy to enable more girls return to school in order to mitigate against increasing the number of illiterate women in the country. Further, only 4,917 and 2,488 re-admissions were recorded in 2018 at primary and secondary levels respectively. Although the numbers show improvement over the years, more needs to be done as the change is painfully slow and continues to see most female learners disadvantaged.
3.0 RATIONALE
ZANEC has received funding from the Education Out Loud Campaign of the Global Campaign for Education through Oxfam Ibis to monitor the implementation of the Re-entry Policy. This will build upon the monitoring conducted in 2018 and will endeavour to identify bottlenecks to the effective implementation of the Policy as well as ascertain to what extent the Policy Guidelines are being adhered to in schools.
3.1 OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The objective of the exercise is to generate evidence that can help strengthen ZANEC’s advocacy case for the prevention and mitigation of girls’ drop-out rates due to pregnancy.
3.2 EXPECTED OUTCOMES
3.2.3 Evidence of the status of implementation of the Re-entry Policy
3.2.2 Enhanced advocacy for accelerated and effective implementation of the Re-entry Policy
3.3 SCOPE OF WORK
In order to conduct effective monitoring, ZANEC will engage a lead consultant to support Member Organisations in the Gender Equality and Equity Sub-sector Committee and Member Organisations based in the target areas to conduct the monitoring exercise.
The Member Organisations, who are responsible for direct monitoring of the implementation of the Re-entry Policy, will track, among other things:
i. to ascertain utilisation of budget allocations enabling the implementation of the Re-entry Policy which will promote the return of girls who drop out of school because of early pregnancies;
ii. the levels of awareness on the Re-entry Policy Guidelines in schools;
iii. the main causes of early pregnancies;
iv. the number of girls who fall pregnant annually by age;
v. the number of pregnant girls who return to school after delivery;
vi. reasons some pregnant girls are still not going back to school despite the Policy.
vii. Uptake of ZANEC recommendations from the last monitoring exercise
3.4 METHODOLOGY
The monitoring exercise will be preceded by a one-day virtual re-orientation of the tools and the monitoring process. The consultant will thereafter assign the Members of the Gender Sub-sector Committee to work with the members based in the target areas in collecting information.
The targeted provinces for the exercise are: Eastern, Luapula, North-Western and Southern Provinces where there are high numbers of pregnancies and early marriages among girls of school going age. Three districts will be monitored in each province. In light of Covid pandemic, monitors will as much as possible utilise telephone and virtual means to conduct the exercise but will also have minimal contact with the schools.
Following the provincial exercise, the monitoring teams will convene to analyse and consolidate the report into one, using online technology such as zoom and share point. Consolidation of the provincial reports will be done by selected members who will then submit to the consultant for refining and analysis.
3.5 Overall expected tasks to be delivered by the Consultant
3.5.1 To conduct a training of data collectors on the methodologies and tools to be used for the Monitoring Exercise, using the Gender Monitoring Tool;
3.5.2 Supervise and provide close guidance to data collectors while they are in the field;
3.5.3 Conduct desk review on background of the implementation of the Re-entry Policy;
3.5.4 Convene feedback meeting with data collectors;
3.5.5 Analyse data and synthesise into one report with key recommendations for efficient budgeting and implementation
3.5.6 Present findings of the monitoring to the engagement meeting to be organised by ZANEC Secretariat.
4.0 KEY DELIVERABLES
- Facilitation of one-day orientation meeting;
- Report of orientation meeting;
- First draft monitoring report for Secretariat review;
- Final report submitted seven days after feedback from Secretariat;
- Presentation of report at engagement meeting
5.0 REQUIRED COMPETENCIES
The consultant will be required to have the following competencies:
5.1 Masters’ Degree in Education, Gender or any field related to the Education and Skills Sector.
5.2 At least five years’ experience policy monitoring work. Experience in the Education and Skills Sector will be an added advantage;
5.3 Must possess analytical skills
*** Expressions of Interest must be accompanied by a resume detailing experiences with similar work; provide evidence of one or two similar works done with traceable references; provide an understanding/interpretation of the Terms of Reference, methodology with set timeframes and the proposed fees.
Interested applicants should send their application no later than 18th September, 2020 to:
The Executive Director
Zambia National Education Coalition Baptist Fellowship
Cnr of Makishi and Great East Road
P.O. Box 30774, Lusaka
Email: director@zanec.org.zm; admin@zanec.org.zm
and infoHR@zanec.org.zm
