SPECIFIC TERMS OF REFERNCE
Review of the Education Sector in Zambia and Analysis of Entry Points for Donor Support
FWC BENEFICIARIES 2013
Lot 09: Culture, Education, Employment & Social EuropeAid
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.BACKGROUND
1.1Summary
1.2Education Sector inZambia
1.3SectorDocumentation
2.DESCRIPTION OF THEASSIGNMENT
2.1GlobalObjective
2.2SpecificObjectives
2.3RequestedServices
2.4RequiredOutputs
2.5Language of the SpecificContract
2.6Subcontracting
3.EXPERTS PROFILE or EXPERTISEREQUIRED
3.1Number of requested experts percategory
3.2Profile per keyexpert
4.LOCATION ANDDURATION
4.1Startingperiod
4.2Foreseen finishing period orduration
5.REPORTING
5.1Content
5.2Language
5.3Submission/commentstiming
5.4Number of report(s)copies
6.INCIDENTALEXPENDITURE
7.MONITORING ANDEVALUATION
7.1Definition ofindicators
1.BACKGROUND
1.1Summary
The European Union (EU) would like to explore potential options of engaging in the education sector under the 12th European Development Fund (EDF). Donor support in this area has been decreasing over the past years, partly due to the fact that education Cooperating Partners (CPs) in Zambia would like to see greater effectiveness of the Ministry of General Education (MoGE) with regard to learner performance, policy reform and implementation, management, donor dialogue and accountability. Joint dialogue has weakened in the last two years. There have been a number of staff changes in line with routine civil service rotations, but the movements have been frequent and have affected implementation capacity. There is evidence of political commitment to education, but this is not matched with the support necessary to ensure that the sector achieves its objectives. Learner performance as assessed bytheregionalSouthernandEasternAfricaConsortiumforMonitoringEducationalQuality
(SACMEQ) and the Ministry of General Education’s own National Assessments has remained the same since 2000, notwithstanding increased investment from both the Government and CooperatingPartners.
However, there is recognition by Zambia and its CPs that education is critical to any development agenda. The development aspirations for Zambia include access to quality education at basic, vocational and tertiary levels on which to build the human capital necessary for inclusive development. Yet, building this required human capital will not be possible with a poorly functioning education system. EU Member States1 active in the sector have signalled their concerns to the EU who agree with the issues raised. Thus, the EU, Ireland and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) are proposing a political economy analysis to understand why the education sector appears to be less effective recently, which issues can be addressed and potential entry points and how dialogue can be enhanced. Besides the EU and its Member States, the study will provide insights to other
CPs on how they can engage.
The main questions for this analysis are: In the next five years, how can the EU and other CPs individually, and collectively engage to advance the education agenda in Zambia? What can be done to improve donor interventions and maximise their impact? What role can sector dialogue play in this? How can it be enhanced in a weakening coordination and harmonisationcontext?
1.2Education Sector inZambia
The Government of Zambia continues to state that education is one of the top priorities of and it features strongly in all the national development plans (NDPs). Despite this the budget for education in recent years has remained fairly static. The Seventh NDP (7NDP) (2017-2021) is a building block formulated to meet the goals contained in the Vision 2030. The Vision 2030 is a long term plan that expresses the aspirations of the Zambian People to live in a strong and dynamic, middle income industrial nation that provides opportunities for improving the wellbeing of all. The 7NDP is formulated on the need to harness the demographic dividend in light of Zambia’s youthful population. The key outcomes include economicdiversificationandjobcreation;reductionofpovertyandvulnerability;reduced
1 Ireland, DFID
developmental inequalities; enhanced human development and the creation of a conducive governance environment for a diversified and inclusive economy2.
Zambia’s population is expected to continue to grow at an average annual rate of around 2.8% up to 2035. The current population was estimated at 15.9 million in 2016: with 9.2 million in rural areas and 6.7 million in urban areas. The youth population is expected to result in growth in the reproductive age group (15-49) and the economically active age group (15-64). Given this demographic picture, Zambia’s large youthful population presents an opportunity for harnessing the demographic dividend with the correct investments in priority areas of the economy such as education and health among others. Although Zambia is still within reach of attaining the Vision 2030 objective of maintaining the unemployment rate below 10 percent, it lacks adequately skilled workers. The major challenge in this regard is that most workers enter the labour force after dropping out of school and without attaining basic numeracy, literacy and information communication technology (ICT) skills. In order for graduates to be job-ready, they need the foundational skills of literacy and numeracy receivedinprimaryeducation. However,withoutthesebasicliteracyandnumeracy,itis
difficult to acquire the 21st century skills and technical and vocational skills received at secondary level. The latter skills are the ones demanded by employers3. This points to the need for investment in basic education and without concerted efforts in prioritising education, Zambia will be challenged in meeting its aspirations.
The implication is that while Zambia’s Vision 2030 is appropriate for a country aspiring to be a middle income country, it will require improvements in human development. The population will need to be educated to have a basis for a reasonable standard of living on which higher level skills for development can be built. Building appropriate skills relies heavily on the quality of primary and secondary education. However, the proportion of primary school learners that graduate to secondary school and eventually onto tertiary education is still relatively small.
The main priorities of the education sector have been to improve access, quality and equity. Access to education for all children in Zambia remains a challenge, with an estimated 575,543 children out of school4. The majority of these are in rural areas and from poor families. A key barrier is the shortage of classroom space. Population growth puts pressure on the infrastructure resources and pace of growth in new schools. Further, the participation of girls in education is low. While enrolment opportunities for boys and girls are now equitable, girls still lag behind due to certain socio-economic factors that particularly disadvantage the girl child. This is reflected in lower learning outcomes for girls than boys although the overall trend is positive and the gap isdeclining5.
In terms of approach, the government realises that working in silos or sectors to address development challenges has not worked well. An integrated approach is being proposed in the new 7NDP and issues and sectors have been clustered into linked pillars. The dialogue structure that is being proposed is also multi-sectoral and responsibility has been placed at a higher level to ensure coherence. This represents a potential opportunity for investments in education, but it success will be dependent on how this integrated approach will work in
2 GRZ 7NDP (2017)
3 Job Ready Graduates of Secondary Education in Botswana, Lesotho and Zambia, World Bank (2017)
4 Out of School Children Diagnostic Report, Ecorys (2017)
5 Equity in the Zambian Education Sector – Diagnostic Study, Ecorys (2017)
practice. This is particularly the case as ministries have not been accustomed to working across sectors in this way.
In general, the education system remains largely functional despite these challenges. Schools are open, teachers turn up to teach, and examinations are conducted at the end of every year. However, a closer examination of the system, its management and performance suggests that there are weaknesses which are undermining performance and efficiency. Notwithstanding the increased government funding to the Ministry and introduction of relevant policy measures, learner performance remains below par. There are encouraging signs of improvements in reading, literacy and numeracy, but this change needs to be across the system. This is a long term process that requires time and resources to benefit all the learners in the system. The active donors in the sector have struggled to have an adequate level of dialogue with the Ministry of General Education in the last twenty four months and agreed dialogue structure is not being followed which has led to a reduction in weak and inadequate reporting to Cooperating Partners. This makes it challenging to know what is happening. It has also affected donor accountability to theirconstituencies.
There have also been constraints in institutional memory, as a large number of staff have been moved to other line ministries across most departments in MoGE. This has depleted the capacity of some of the departments as new personnel need time to settle down and some capacities need to be rebuilt. Key positions in MoGE have changed in recent years. There are opportunities at district and school level for improvements, but funding is inadequate and when released to districts it is received too late to have any meaningful impact for those students in thatyear.
Accountability for performance is a major challenge in the Ministry of General Education. Although the public service puts responsibility on the Permanent Secretary for implementation and funding, in practice, it is delegated to other levels. In a centralised system spanning 8,823 primary schools and 851 secondary schools under 105 district education offices and 10 provincial centres, accountability is complex. No one is held accountable for poor learner performance or for reports that are not filed on time, or for not having books delivered to schools at the start of the school year, or for starting teaching at the beginning of each term and ensuring the correct number of days spent learning is delivered. There is a tendency of blaming bureaucracy in the delivery systems. On paper, the policies, strategies and systems are strong, transparent and accountable. However, the reality is that those policies and strategies are not enforced nor is their sufficient funding for their full delivery.
There have been a number of studies and analyses carried out to assess the Ministry’s performance and also to understand what is happening on the demand and supply side of education. These have provided information which, if used to inform decision making, would have brought about improvements to the learner performance and management at school level. There have been studies on procurement, human resource management, teacher performance and management, infrastructure, equity and financial management, just to list a few. However, the current system of using information from studies is only through the annual sector review process, which is inadequate to address the issues in sufficient depth. Where this has happened, it has been due to the persistent lobbying of Cooperating Partners and CivilSociety.
Currently, there are five active cooperating partners in the sector namely the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), DFID and Ireland. The CPs support the Education ministry’s strategy the National Implementation Framework (NIFIII 2011-2015). JICA and UNICEF intend to continue providing supporting for the foreseeable future. USAID is in the process of designing a new country programme and it is not clear the nature of their future education support. The DFID support to education, which includes technical assistance (TA) and management of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) funds, will end in March 2018 and any further support will not be delivered through general budget support or a sector wide approach. Ireland had committed support to MoGE for the period 2013-2017. Since 2016, Ireland has not released any funds to the Ministry and will not be continuing to provide support to the Ministry in its new Mission Strategy 2018- 2022.
On the multi-lateral side, Zambia was awarded a GPE grant of $32.5m in 2013 to help with the financing gap of the NIF III. DFID is the Grant Agent and UNICEF is the Coordinating Agency. The World Bank re-entered the Education sector after a long absence and their entry has been significantly delayed due to the protracted negotiations with the Ministry although the funds were approved by the World Bank board in September 2017.
The introduction of a revised curriculum in 2014 was a bold move by the Ministry of General Education. The curriculum was updated to respond to stagnating learner performance results in the Ministry’s National Assessment Surveys and the Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ).
CPs perceive there is scope to improve leadership in the sector. Within government, civil society or the church, there is no coherent advocacy on the importance of education to development. Currently, there is no one championing education within government, therefore there is little attention as to what is happening and the challenges observed by sector stakeholders are not understood. Amongst some CPs, the education sector is perceived as an increasingly challenging development area to engage in. Donors are instrumental in lobbying to ensure that certain issues remain on the priority list of the government. Due to some of the challenges in the sector, some donors have shifted their focus to other areas that promise quicker results, such as energy, nutrition, social protection, and infrastructure.
However, it is difficult to see how donors working in new areas will yield sustainable development results without addressing the weaknesses in the education sector. Development analysis continues to point to the importance of investing in education for sustainable development. Government has over the years been increasing the overall budget to education, but the proportion of expenditure in the sector has actually declined from 20% to 17% from 2013 to 2017 and releases are low and erratic. This is not conducive for enhanced learner performance. Public discourse on education is weak and so is demand for accountability in terms of delivery. In its statement of 12 December 2017, the Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) reports on the 2016 Auditor General's Report findings regarding the Education and Skills Sector which, among others, highlighted misappropriations and irregularities within the Ministries dealing with education as well as under-expenditure of the 2016 education budget. Fiduciary risk has been assessed in a recent fiduciary risk annual statement of progress to be substantial andworsening.
1.3SectorDocumentation
In 2016 and 2017 there have been some significant reviews conducted in the education sector. They include the Education Sector Analysis and from that the development of the Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP) and its appraisal for GPE. In addition, DFID is conducting the end line evaluation of the Education Sector Budget Support and the World Bank conducted reviews for the development of the Secondary education support. All of these documents should form part of the key documents underreview.
An indicative list of documents to be reviewed includes:
1.Education Sector Analysis, Ministry of General Education(2018)
2.ZESSTA Third National Implementation Framework (NIFIII) Education and Skills Sector: Lessons Learned(2016)
3.Ministry of Education, Science Vocational Training and Early, EducationNational Assessment Survey Learning Achievement of Grade 5 and 9(2016)
4.UNESCO Zambia Policy Review(2016)
5.Ministry of Education, Science and Vocational Training and Early Educationthe Zambia Education Curriculum Framework(2013)
6.World Bank Public Expenditure Tracking Survey of Quality Service and Quality Service Delivery(2015)
7.World Bank Public Expenditure Review(2015)
8.Ecorys Diagnostic Studies for the Ministry of General Education(MoGE)
-Equity in the Zambian Education Sector(2017)
-Out of School Children in Zambia(2017)
-Financing of Public Universities in Zambia(2017)
-Teacher Training, Recruitment, Deployment, Management and Retention(2017)
-Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TEVET)Tracer Study(2017)
2.DESCRIPTION OF THEASSIGNMENT
2.1GlobalObjective
The overall objective of this assignment is to provide a synthesis of documentation of the education sector in Zambia and an analysis for future engagement and investment by EU MS and other CPs.
2.2SpecificObjectives
The specific objectives of this assignment are as follows:
- To summarise sector challenges, what has been done by Government and CPs, what is planned in the future and where the key gapsare.
- To review the lessons learned from key documents and discussions with key stakeholders
- To set out possible entry points for further engagement in the sector including potential implementation modalities in the current context for the short, medium and longer-term.
2.3Requestedservices
The services will be delivered following the below phases:
Phase / Activities to be carried out1. Desk phase /
- Inception report: Develop and agree a detailed work plan, including format of reporting and timelines
- Review all the relevant documents and existing data
2. Research phase /
- Conduct consultations with relevant stakeholders (e.g. relevant Ministries, civil society, National Authorising Office, Cooperating Partners, including EU and EU member states working in Zambia, particularly those with experience in the sector such as DFID and the Embassy ofIreland)
- Present preliminary findings in a validation workshop with relevantstakeholders
3. Reporting writing and
finalisation phase /
- Draft report and review according tocomments
- Prepare and have approved the finalreport
4.Dissemination / o Hold dissemination/debriefing meeting at the EUD
with EU Member States in Zambia
Phase 1: During the desk phase, the experts will develop a detailed work plan and review sector documents. From this process, they will identify key informants. The inception report will be submitted to the EUD and discussed in a meeting at the EUD in Lusaka. This will include a proposal concerning the focus of the research phase and the structure of the final report. Aspects to be addressed may include, but will not be limited to: