FACILITATE MONITORING OF THE RE-ENTRY POLICY IN FOUR PROVINCES, THREE DISTRICTS EACH TO PROMOTE GENDER PARITY
- 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 1st September, 2020 to:
The Executive Director
Zambia National Education CoalitionBaptist Fellowship
Cnr of Makishi and Great East Road
P.O. Box 30774, Lusaka
Email: admin@zanec.org.zm
and infoHR@zanec.org.zm
