Consultancy on the effectiveness of EBTVET in providing Employment Opportunities for Marginalized Youths in Mandera County, Save the Children International

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Background

Save the Children through the Enterprise, based Technical and Vocational Education Training (EBTVET) program aims to ‘Invest and Test’ the ‘market systems change approach to youth livelihoods’ because it has the potential to lead to sustainable change for the most deprived youth at scale. Through transforming deprived youths’ opportunities to learn marketable skills and to transition into decent work the inter-generational transmission of poverty will be broken. As outlined in the Child Poverty Strategy 2016-2018, economically empowering highly deprived adolescents will enable youth to transition out of harmful work (breakthrough on violence) and at the same time, it will equip them to financially provide for their (future) children. This in turn will increase their children’s chances of being free from preventable disease, accessing quality education and removing the economic pressure to enter into harmful child labour. The market systems approach for youth livelihoods will deliver where traditional youth livelihoods programme approaches fail to deliver and at scale: in remote and structurally neglected areas such as arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) in the East Africa Region.

The EBTVET aimed at improving the knowledge and skills for the out of school youth from poor and vulnerable households using local markets. The skills acquired geared towards improving employability amongst the youth as well as stimulating growth within the local market sectors to create more employment opportunities and improve income for vulnerable community. It is due to the above statement that Save the Children will wish to find how the current situation of employment of youth and relevance of technical education to youth in development of the nation using tracer study of EBTVET youth who have graduated and they in the job market.

Project Context

Between 2016 and 2018, Save the Children UK invested £450,000 and set up an innovative Enterprise Based Technical Vocational Training (EBTVET) project in Mandera County reaching over 600 out of school youth aged between 14 – 26 years. The project was the only TVET programme which was enterprise based, working with the private sector to build a sustainable vocational training system. Based on a labour market analysis, the programme identified enterprises where there was demand for skilled workers but where there are no formal vocational training opportunities. It then attached the youth to these enterprises where they carried out a mixture of classwork and on- the- job apprenticeship training. This allowed participants to diversify their skills linked to the labour market and to enter in apprenticeships carried out at local business. It also allowed the most marginalized youth who did not have primary school certification to gain practical skills and access employment.

Objectives of the study

The overall of the study is to establish the effectiveness of the EBTVET model in equipping youths with the necessary skills for gainful employment in Mandera County. The study will trace the beneficiaries of the training to establish what they are currently to provide evidence of the project’s relevance, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability. Consequently, the assessment will account for the youth’s engagement in apprenticeship, self-employment, and formal employment.

Specific Objectives

  1. Identify the type of current employment and incomes achieved by the trained youths
  2. Establish the employability of the skills and training offered in EBTVET
  3. Establish the factors inhibiting youth employment (wage or self-employment) in Mandera  County
  4. Identify perceptions and satisfaction levels of the youths regarding the EBTVET models implemented.
  5. Establish best practices/lessons learned from the project implementation of EBTVET (Business
    Development Services, Placement Services, Graduates, Skills Development)
  6. Establish  factors that  influenced achievement or non-achievement of sustainability of the EBTVET model

Scope of the evaluation

    1. The extent to which the project facilitated vision building with youth, local authorities and (local) businesses on what an attractive and relevant vocational training model would look like (e.g. roundtable events) and the technical follow up support provided.
    2. The establishment of a platform for continued and regular exchange between youth, public and private sector to ensure attractiveness and market relevance of skills transfer.
    3. The effectiveness of an alternative vocational training model (enterprise based technical and vocational education and training [EBTVET] which links youth to local businesses for apprenticeships) and whether it has increased demand and ownership for this model.
    4. The social marketing campaigns used to disseminate successes of the EBTVET model and to increase demand and ownership for the model that have been implemented.
    5. The extent to which the project engaged in advocacy to address structural constraints in the vocational training sector (e.g. advocate for stipends to be provided to the poorest and most deprived youth to enable them to carry out apprenticeships)
    6. The effectiveness of local stakeholders to run the programme independently, the relevance of the capacity building carried out and whether the project is sustainable or not
    7. The technical support provided to public and private sector stakeholders to develop quality insurance system for the EBTVET model (child safeguarding, workplace safety, training quality, gender equality, life skills and business development curriculum development, linkages with complementary models and certification services etc.).
    8. The extent to which community sensitization campaigns were carried out with the aim to broaden prevailing gender norms of what are ‘appropriate’ career and life choices for adolescent girls and young women.
    9. The extent to which tailored capacity building (e.g. on technologies or business models), mentoring and networking support was provided to selected local businesses in identified growth sectors that have high potential to create additional jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for youth.
    10. Dissemination of evidence, facilitation of network meetings and trade fairs to encourage other businesses from the targeted sectors to tap into existing knowledge networks, to adopt new technologies and/or to adopt new business models
    11. The facilitation of knowledge and technology transfer networks (e.g. via the facilitation of trade and knowledge fairs, cross-country exchange visits etc.)that was carried out by the project and the impact created
    12. The facilitation of access to financial service providers and the impact created
    13. The extent to which the project was engaged in advocacy to remove key structural constraints for local businesses.

The evaluation will place an emphasis on measuring and documenting the impact and lessons learned of the pilot interventions. Evidence will be used to guide future programming, to replicate successful models and to build ownership at all levels.

Required Responses to the TOR

A technical and financial proposal based on this Terms of Reference (TOR) is requested from the consultant or consulting firm. At minimum, the proposal should contain:

  1. Consultants understanding of the TOR, introduction, methods including survey/research design, sampling, field procedures for data collection and analysis plan, workplan (preferably a Gantt chart of key activities), detailed budget indicating consultancy fees and operational costs.
  2. The technical proposal should indicate specific roles and responsibilities of the team leader, supervisory chain and other core members of the evaluation team
  3. The financial proposal should contain detailed budget with justification. The detailed budget should cover all costs associated with the tasks. This should be submitted by major activities and line items for Save the Children review and decision.
  4. Updated CV of Team Leader and other core members of the Evaluation Team showing relevant experience in the areas required by the ToR
  5. A profile of the consultant/consulting firm including a past report/s of similar assignments.

Consultant’s qualifications

  1. An advanced university degree (MA/MSc) or Masters’ degree in education management, social sciences and a TVET related qualification.
  2. General professional experience: At least 10 years of professional experience related to TVET policies implementation.
  3. Specific professional experience: Proven experience in evaluation of livelihoods projects will be considered as an asset;
  4. Proven experience in gender transformative programming , TVET and youth empowerment, etc. will be considered as an asset;
  5. Proven experience in life skills for success and entrepreneurship training  will be considered as an asset;
  6. – Proven experience in resources mobilization strategies and development of evaluation reports with potential donors and development partners
  7. -Strong experience in working with TVET stakeholders such as the pastoralist communities, County Government and Local skilled enterprises.

 EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

1. Inception Report

The inception report should provide a detailed methodology outlining how the consultant carry out the evaluation. The consultant will also be expected to develop and share an inception report before commencing fieldwork as well as obtain the relevant ethical review and approval.

2. Data collection tools and templates

The consultant will be expected to develop tools and templates. These will be shared with Save the Children for review and approval in accordance with the agreed-upon timeline. The Research assistants to be used in the data collection exercise will be recruited by Save the children and trained by the consultant.

3. Evaluation report including project impact results as well as the raw data set

The evaluation report must be submitted to the Save the Children designated contact person within 15 working days after completion of fieldwork and data analysis. The final report to be submitted 5 days after integration of the various comments made from Save the Children.

4. A four-page summary of the evaluation report submitted together with the evaluation report.

Timelines: The consultancy will be 30 working days. The Final report to be submitted by end of October 2022.

Intellectual property rights

All products developed under this consultancy belong to the project exclusively, guided by the rules of the grant contract between Pfizer Foundation and Save the Children. Under no circumstances will the consultant use the information of this evaluation for publication or dissemination without official prior permission (in writing) from Save the Children.

 Submission of expressions of interest

All interested individuals/firms are requested to express interest following the attached EOI format ONLY by email to:  Kenya.logisticsbidding@savethechildren.org indicating the assignment title on the subject line. The applications close on Friday 23rd September2022.

Late submissions and canvassing will lead to automatic disqualification.

Evaluation and award of consultancy

Save the Children will evaluate the proposals and award the assignment based on technical and financial feasibility criteria guided by this ToRs. Save the Children reserves the right to accept or reject any proposal received without giving reasons and is not bound to accept the lowest, the highest or any bidder. The consultancy is subject to Save the Children policies… https://kenya.savethechildren.net/careers

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