Background

The evaluation of education is an essential process for the educational development, as it constitutes a key element in the government's institutional work to improve public education with all its elements and levels. The systematic evaluation depends of an organized and independent statistical and analytical extrapolation of the educational efforts, as well as deduction of evidence and indicators to reach specific recommendations to guide the development efforts and the process of making sound decisions on them. For the best practice of education evaluation, the evaluation process is based on regulatory and procedural legislation and mechanisms that guarantee for those in charge of public education institutions a positive interaction with the wise requirements to support the national economy and development under the general policy of the Kingdom.

As of recent, the Kingdom is witnessing development at an unprecedented speed and at various levels of economic and social development, with a clear progress in the fields of economic base diversification and infrastructure development.

In April 2016, the Saudi Vision 2030, an ambitious blueprint for development, was launched. The overall objective of this vision is to transform the economy from its conventional reliance on oil and natural gas to a more diversified economy based on sustainable development. In an effort to build the institutional capabilities required to achieve the ambitious goals of the vision, the National Transformation Programme 2020 (NTP2020) was launched in June 2016 across 24 governmental bodies operating in the economic and development sectors. The NTP2020 uses innovative methods to identify challenges, seize opportunities, adopt effective planning tools, activate the role of the private sector, bring about implementation and evaluate performance against a set of results and key performance indicators.

The educational system requires a high degree of transparency as well as an accurate scientific review for all aspects of the educational process. There is a clear difference between an educational system that gives the student a minimum level of competencies, knowledge and skills, and another that builds human capacity, achieves community efficiency, and contributes to society's economic construction.

This project started out aiming public education, however, the focus has now shifted towards education in general in both the public and private sectors. The key objectives of the Project were:

A. Enhance the Commission's technical and regulatory capabilities in managing the educational process in the Kingdom.

B. Develop a comprehensive assessment of the Commission's areas of work in terms of school performance, educational programmes, school accreditation, and programme accreditation.

C. Develop an action plan to assess and build a quality system and professional licensing system for workers in the public education institutions and units.

D. Make and promote supportive systems for the management of qualifications to ensure the establishment of a national framework for qualifications that achieves effective linkage between the outputs of the educational system and the requirements of development and labor market.

E. Evaluate the educational outputs and propose a mechanism for reviewing them for the purpose of providing continuous evaluation of the efficiency of the public education system.

F. Support the Commission in the preparation of the strategic plan to evaluate the public and private education.

[1] It is the entity that has overall responsibility for implementation of the project (award), effective use of resources and delivery of outputs in the signed project document and workplan.

Duties and Responsibilities

UNDP has initiated the evaluation as a mandatory exercise at the terminal of the project implementation to provide all stakeholders with impartially derived firsthand information on the status of the project and its relevance and performance towards achieving the objectives as listed in the Project Documents.  The purpose of the evaluation is to perform an in-depth assessment from technical and managerial viewpoints to see whether the project has successfully accomplished its objectives and to evaluate the impact and sustainability of the project outcome and to assess how the outputs of the above-mentioned project have contributed to enhance the technical, technological and organizational capabilities of the Education Evaluation and training Commission (previously known as the Public Education Evaluation Commission) as regards the management of the educational process in the Kingdom The findings of the mission will be useful for understanding the management and technical issues of the project and the progress achieved to date.  Furthermore, all stakeholders will help in re-orientation and re-prioritizing of project activities as needed and facilitate in addressing specific issues by the project management.

The assessment of this project was strategically placed at this particular time in order to promote needed adjustments, identify lessons learned and draw up a sustainability plan for the project prior to end 2019, date of project completion. Efficiency and effectiveness are of prime importance but also transparency and accountability.  The review will illustrate intended and unintended results. 

The evaluator will be tasked to provide recommendations aiming to improve various aspects of the project towards achievement and quality delivery of the project.

Competencies

Corporate Compencies

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness, by modelling the UN/UNDP’s values and ethical standards;

• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UNDP;

• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Compencies

• Proven technical and intellectual skills in understanding and interpreting regional, national and local green financing issues;

• Ability to understand and analyze and political dynamics in the region;

• Demonstrated ability for facilitation and coordination skills;

• Background knowledge about the SDGs, United Nations and UNDP;

• Good teamwork and interpersonal skills;

• Flexibility and ability to handle multiple tasks and work under pressure;

• Excellent drafting and formulation skills;

• Excellent computer skills especially Word, Excel and PowerPoint;

Leadership

• Demonstrated intellectual leadership and ability to integrate green finance with broader strategic overview and corporate vision;

• Demonstrated flexibility in leadership by performing and/or overseeing the analysis/resolution of complex issues;

• Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of development experience.

Managing Relationships

• Excellent negotiating and networking skills with strong partnerships in academia, technical organizations and as a recognized expert in the practice area.

Managing Complexity

• Ability to address global development issues;

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Ability to strongly promote and build knowledge products;

• Seeks and applies knowledge, information and best practices from within and outside of UNDP;

• Demonstrates a strong capacity for innovation and creativity in providing strategic policy advice and direction.

Judgment/Decision-Making

• Proven ability to provide strategic direction to the project implementation process;

• Independent judgment and discretion in advising on handling major policy issues and challenges, uses diplomacy and tact to achieve result.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• An education specialist holding and advanced university degree preferably in education (at least Master’s degree)

Experience:

• Around 15 years of relevant experience preferably with education evaluation as well as related indicators and knowledge economy
• Previous involvement and understanding of UNDP’s procedures is an advantage and extensive international experience in the fields of project formulation, execution, and evaluation is required
• Possess strong writing skills coupled with relevant experience in results-based monitoring and evaluation technique.

Language Requirement:

• The required language for the post is English and Arabia is an asset. 

Interested offeror must read  the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at  http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=59830 for more  detail information about term  of references, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online.

UNDP reserves right to reject any applications that is incomplete.

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested Offerors are required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on­line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e­mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email pheara.lek@undp.org. While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice