UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.
Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.
And we never give up.
For every child, a fair chance
Uganda is one of the over 190 countries and territories around the world where we work to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease, and discrimination place in a child’s path.Together with the Government of Uganda and partners we work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the objectives of the Uganda National Development Plan, and the planned outcomes of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework.
Visit this link for more information on Uganda Country Office https://www.unicef.org/uganda/
How can you make a difference?
Under the supervision of the Education Specialist and technical support of the International Education Consultant the National Education Innovation Consultant is accountable for providing technical support to MoES and related agencies in the implementation, monitoring and documentation of the afore mentioned T4D solutions. TheEducation Innovation Consultant is further responsible for coordinating and facilitating mainstreaming and scaling up of the abovementioned innovations. The consultant is also expected to explore new innovative solutions.
Background
UNICEF has increasingly leveraged appropriate technology to promote programme impact, particularly as regards to quality education and access to information. To that end, UNICEF partnered with the Government of Uganda to leverage the T4D solutions such as EduTrac and other RapidPro applications; pilot the Kolibri and Kupaa; enhance the quality of special needs education through assistive devices and adapted learning materials for children with disability under the United Nations Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD) project.
EduTrac is an SMS-based and RapidPro-powered data collection system, which the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) uses to monitor education indicators more frequently than the annual schools census would allow. The data collection process involves school administrators and district education officers responding to periodic polls via free-of-charge SMS messages. These messages are visible to national officers and other stakeholders through a web-based reporting dashboard for analysis. Thus, EduTrac aims to support districts in their efforts to improve planning and monitoring of education services while at the sector level, MoES uses the data to support faster, more targeted school supervision and management. EduTrac is also part of the Integrated Inspectorate System. The Statistics and Basic Education departments at MoES are working with UNICEF to digitize the collection of pre-primary data and address existing gaps through the use of uSurvey and RapidPro in five pilot districts.
Kolibri is an innovative digital education platform piloted with leadership from MoES in 32 government-aided secondary schools with computer labs and 12 youth centers with digital kiosks located in 13 districts across Uganda. Kolibri, which can run without Internet, seeks to provide adolescents, especially girls, access to digital and open educational resources to improve learning outcomes in mathematics and sciences, and to enhance digital literacy and life skills. Through Kolibri, deployment in formal and informal education settings, learners and educators can gain knowledge and skills to be competitive in an increasingly digital economy. Kolibri has reached over 2,000 students, 190 teachers, 144 volunteers and mentors, and 4500 adolescents in refugee settlements through training and mobilization.
Kupaa is a digital platform that links schools, guardians, and the school ecosystems bringing all income and expenditure of the school into one transparent system. The platform facilitates digital payment of parental contribution to school. By digiting the school finance and admin data, Kupaa allows the administration of the school to manage students, guardians, and teachers; track financial flows; and gives real time information on key school indicators to school, district and Ministry officials. Kupaa is live in more than 300 schools located in 4 districts with over 164,000 students, 118,000 guardians, and 5,000 teachers. There is a plan to expand Kupaa to 1000 schools in the next two years.
Under the UNPRDP project, digital accessible learning materials have been designed and adapted for pilot in 20 primary schools. This project included designing materials for children with Visual Impairment (VI), Blind, Hard of Hearing (HoH) and Deaf; adapting and aligning the materials to the syllabus/curriculum and producing the materials in Daisy/other similar formats using multi-media with accompanying teachers’ guides. UNICEF in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Sports and Kyambogo University have tested and deployed these materials in the 20 pilot schools along with the associated capacity building necessary for learners, teachers, teacher educators, parents and the local community. The emphasis now is to ensure effective use of these accessible learning materials and assistive technology and pedagogical capacity enhancement in the classroom. To that end, UNICEF contributed mobi-stations with Kolibri where learners and teachers can access nearly 200 open education resources.
Key Tasks:
- In consultation with all stakeholders, develop a roadmap for scaling up of RapidPro, Kolibri, Kupaa, and the assistive devises.
- Facilitate the formulation of a MOU between the Ministry of Education, NITA-U, Master Card Lab, and UNICEF for the governance and scale up of Kupaa.
- Provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Education in expanding the use of EduTrack.
- Facilitate coordination between Uganda Communication Commission, NITA-U and Ministry of Education in developing sustainable approach for maintenance and expansion of Learning Labs in government secondary schools across the country.
- Facilitate coordination between, the National Curriculum Centre and E-learning team of the Ministry of education and related education projects for the development of new digital content linked to the Uganda Secondary Education Curriculum.
- Engage with the EMIS section to explore the potential of using Kupaa and EduTrack as part of the revamped EMIS.
- Conduct training at school, district levels and training centers as required.
- Coordinate with the Mastercard labs team, District Education Officers, MoES focal points, and partners to meet the targets set in the UNICEF-Mastercard MoU. Support the formative evaluation of Kupaa schools.
- Support Kyambogo University to enhance effective use of digital accessible learning materials in the 20 pilot schools.
- Disseminate findings at regional and national platforms on UNICEF’s innovations, T4D solutions, and projects in the Education sector.
- Conduct regular follow up visits to the pilot sites address concerns and consolidate gains.
- Identify scalability and explore sustainability of T4D solutions spearheaded by the MoES
To qualify asan advocate for every child you will have…
- The consultancy is open to national professionals ONLY. Advanced university degree in a relevant discipline, ideally in education, communications or information sciences, social sciences or international relations, experience in EdTech or digital learning is an asset.
- At least 3 to 5 years of experience in professional work at the national level in programme management, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation related to innovation in education.
- Expertise and work experience in Information technology.
- Experience in policy engagement, partnership creation and management,
- Demonstrated experience in creating and editing digital content; experience creating content for web, for young people, or for use by secondary-level students will be an asset.
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.
The competencies required for this post are….
View our competency framework at
http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf
UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.
Remarks:
Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.
More Information
- Job City Kampala
