Foreign economic-aid-related services

Tender description

The Department for International Development (DFID) is inviting bids for the Programme Directorate for a new 8 year research programme on Effective Education Systems. The aim of the research is to understand how to improve learning for all at scale in developing countries. Too many children are in school but not learning enough across the developing world. International evidence suggests that more resources are not what drives better learning. Emerging evidence suggests that institutional factors, such as effective use of assessment systems and teacher effectiveness are critical elements of successful education systems. Understanding these institutional dimensions and the dynamics of change in education systems could be key to unlocking future learning gains at scale. To aid global understanding, DFID is commissioning a large-scale, multi-year research programme to build the evidence around effective education systems in developing countries. The research is expected to take place in up to 5 focus countries, allowing an intensive research effort to understand change at scale. The first phase of the procurement is now closed and DFID will shortly contract a Research Director and Intellectual Leadership Group to set the intellectual direction of this major programme. In this, the second phase of procurement, DFID is inviting bids for a Programme Directorate to manage and deliver the research agenda. This will include overall people and financial management of the programme and procurement of country focused research teams to conduct high quality empirical research on education systems and at-scale reform. Some of the responsibilities of the Programme Directorate include: convening and communication to build consensus on the agenda for the programme; synthesis of the research tools and best practice to enable cross-country comparisons; procuring and managing the country research teams; and supporting academics to place publications in high impact peer review journals. The procurement for this process will be done in parallel to the development of the research agenda, questions and methods by the Research Director and the Intellectual Leadership Group. Additionally, the Directorate will work with the Research Director to produce evidence syntheses and other evidence products to support programme objectives, providing quality assurance to deliver high quality outputs. The Directorate will be responsible for collaborating with the Research Director to develop and agree annual workplans which flow from the research agenda, monitor implementation, manage budgets and ensure key policies are in place and are being followed. Finally, the Programme Directorate will manage the secretariat for the Steering Committee which will have executive oversight of the programme. Whilst DFID will initially issue the contract to the Research Director and Intellectual Leadership, this contract will be novated over to the Programme Directorate once appointed. The Programme Directorate will need to be able to engage on an intellectual level with the research agenda, and be able to work cooperatively with the Research Director and the Intellectual Leadership Group to support the implementation of the vision of the programme.