Foreign economic-aid-related services

Tender description

This is a prior information notice (PIN) only: publication and call for competition will be conducted once scope of work is fully defined and approved. The Sindh Education Non-State Actors (SENSA) programme will fund a full cycle of primary education for 53,614 (59 % girls, 41 % boys) of the poorest children in Sindh. The Education Fund for Sindh (EFS), a pilot programme which DFID Pakistan supported since February 2012, came to an end on 31 March 2016. EFS funded four national and international non-government organisations ((I)NGOs) as alternative providers of education services, known as ‘intermediaries’. Of all the strands of the EFS programme (the voucher system, the intermediary programme and the public private partnership strand) the ‘intermediary’ strand was the most successful in terms of both delivery and in mitigating risk. DFID will support most of the children already enrolled under the intermediary strand to complete their primary education through the SENSA programme, and gain quality learning outcomes so they can transition to an appropriate next stage. The SENSA programme builds on lessons learned from EFS. DFID Pakistan will continue funding three of the international and national non-government organisations (I)NGOs previously delivering education to out-of-school children under the intermediary strand of EFS. DFID has put in place an interim Contract Management Organisation (CMO) to manage and monitor the delivery and performance of these organisations, and manage funds on DFID's behalf. The interim CMO will be in place for a period of eight months to get the programme started and carry out inception work. DFID is seeking a CMO to take over fully from the interim supplier from June 2017 The Contract Management Organisation (CMO) will be set up with the following objectives: i. Ensure a smooth transition from the short-term interim CMO arrangement to a long-er-term CMO, with an effective handover period. ii. Provide programme and financial management oversight of the quality primary education of the 53,614 children currently enrolled in BRAC, TCF and FESF schools; (I)NGO performance; and flow of funds; iii. Develop monthly workplans in consultation with DFID and all three (I)NGOs; iv. Take over and maintain interim CMO systems, including IT systems; student data-bases; transparent payment systems for monthly payments to (I)NGOs linked to en-rolment and minimum attendance; and approach to monitoring and performance improvement; v. Based on the interim CMO's approach, maintain a robust monitoring plan including physical spot checks to verify and compare enrolment, attendance, dropouts and learning outcomes (using agreed learning assessment tools) for students in all three (I)NGO schools; vi. Based on the DFID Logframe, collect, verify and report monitoring data monthly to DFID through appropriate systems and processes. Data will comprise: number of students supported by each (I)NGO, student numeracy and literacy levels, attend-ance rates, retention rates, completion rates, transition to middle schools, stu-dent/teacher ratio, (I)NGO learning assessment systems (Maths, English, Ur-du/Sindhi), and support to teachers. vii. Potentially re-verify children enrolled in BRAC, TCF and FESF schools as needed (based on the work of the interim CMO); viii. Based on the interim CMO's approach, follow up on any outstanding (I)NGO due diligence assessment report actions. Review progress on DDA action plans for each organisation (devised by the (I)NGOs and interim CMO) on a monthly basis, and make an assessment to DFID after six months regarding whether the (I)NGOs have made satisfactory progress; ix. Based on the interim CMO's approach, oversee and continue to populate a struc-tured value for money framework, to better understand the differences between the various education models adopted by the three (I)NGOs and unit costs; x. Manage the delivery of quality education so that children enrolled under the pro-gramme receive the best education within the parameters of the programme, and demonstrate learning and gender equality outcomes on a par with or better than their peers in similar schools; xi. Safeguard UK taxpayer funds by putting in place a complaint management sys-tem/anti-fraud hotline for the general public in line with DFID guidance. Maintain a conflict of interest register; xii. Ensure visibility and promotion of UKAid branding across (I)NGO work SENSA will work mainly in Karachi, where there are the greatest numbers of out-of-school children, but also in the districts of Qamber Shahdadkot and Khairpur.