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Date: / 25 May 2017
ITT reference number: / PR/ARO/2017/0017

Save the Children invites your submission of a request for proposal to provide services in accordance with the conditions detailed in the attached documents. Save the Children intends to issue a research consultancy contract for the following service: Research: “The Impacts of Hazards on Education in Philippines 2009-2016”

We include the following information for your review:

·  Part 1: Request for Proposal and Research Information

·  Part 2: Conditions of Proposal

·  Part 3: Terms and Conditions of Purchase (which will be signed by the successful Bidder)

·  Part 4: Save the Children’s Child Safeguarding Policy

·  Part 5: Save the Children’s Anti-Bribery and Corruption Policy

·  Part 6: The IAPG Code of Conduct

Your tender application must be received in Bidder Response Document format, which includes:

·  Cover letter stating interest and qualifications

·  CV(s) of proposed research team members, and/or introduction of institute, company and primary investigators

·  Links to 1 or 2 sample research work products

·  Full proposal based on the descriptions of this research

Application deadline to return your expression of interest must be received at the email address below not later than 7 June, 2017 ("the Closing Date"). Failure to meet the Closing Date may result in the proposal being void. Returned proposals must remain open for consideration for a period of not less than 60 days from the Closing Date. Save the Children is under no obligation to award the contract or to award it to the lowest bidder.

Should you require further information or clarification on the proposal requirements, please contact ESD Research Team in writing to the following email address: [ before 31 May, 2017.

We look forward to receiving a proposal from you and thank you for your interest in our account.


PART 1: Request for PROPOSAL AND RESEARCH INFORMATION

Introduction

Save the Children is the world’s leading independent organisation for children. We work in 120 countries. We save children’s lives; we fight for their rights; we help them fulfil their potential. We work together, with our partners, to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives. We have over two million supporters worldwide and raised 1.6 billion dollars in 2011 to reach more children than ever before, through programmes in health, nutrition, education, protection and child rights, also in times of humanitarian crises.

Provisional timetable

Activity / Date
Issue Tender Notice
Return Tender Application (Closing Date) / 4 May 2017
7 June 2017
Tender Review Committee
Bid clarifications as required / 8-9 June 2017
9 June 2017
Award Contract / 16-20 June 2017
"Go-Live" with Supplier / 20 June 2017

1.  PURPOSE

The purpose of this research is to complete a comprehensive study of the impacts of intensive and extensive hazards on both children’s education, and on education sector investments for children in primary and secondary education in the Philippines. The data will also provide the evidence-base for a subsequent analysis of the economic consequences of these impacts on the education sector as well as on individuals and families.

The country of study selected is the Philippines. The reasons for this selection are:

• The Philippines is identified as one of the most hazard prone countries in the world

• There has been a disaster risk reduction and management office within the national education authority, for several years

• The Philippines is a champion country in the Worldwide Initiative for School Safety, and has played a leading role in championing the implementation of a comprehensive approach to school safety, particularly in the ASEAN region, over the past few years.

• National EMIS collects reliable data on attendance and enrolment.

• Major hazard impacts on education sector facilities, structures and content, including teaching and learning materials have been well-documented.

• There are records available on school closures.

• Proactive policy measures have been implemented to expedite post-disaster damage assessment, implement Temporary Learning Spaces, and offer psychosocial support.

• Education cluster mobilization efforts have been documented in several major disasters.

This study not limited to natural hazards, but will include all hazards for which data is available - as these affect school safety, educational continuity, education sector investments, and culture of safety.

2.  TITLE

The Impacts of Hazards on Education in Philippines

3.  BACKGROUND

Save the Children has launched an Education Safe from Disasters (ESD) strategy, which is a three-year Asia-Pacific regional strategy, aimed at strengthening Save the Children’s approach to Comprehensive School Safety, which aims to defend two fundamental child rights: the right to safety and survival, and the right to education.

The Asia region is the most disaster prone in the world, and children bear the brunt of the impact. The Philippines, which is exposed to typhoons, earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes as well as to a range of man-made hazards including urban inundation in informal settlements, hazardous materials releases, as well as conflict.

Children’s right to education, and policies and priorities for access to a free quality basic education rest on an assumption about children’s ability to attend a target percentage of normative school days in order to progress and benefit from their education. When schools are closed, used for other purposes or inaccessible, and when the school calendar or school attendance are significantly (and repeatedly) disrupted, when exam schedules are inflexible, children fall behind, to fail to achieve their goals, to drop out before finishing school. The consequences of educational inequities are severe for individuals, families, and national welfare. Children who drop out of school face higher rates of poverty, exploitation, and violence. Whilst there is some evidence that coping with adversity is a learning and growth experience, we have a reasonable expectation that equitable access to participate in a high percentage of the normative school hours is fundamental to the right to education.

This research is to quantify and differentiate the impacts of hazards of all sizes on the education sector in the Philippines. The focus is on both educational impact on children, as well as economic impact, on school facilities and teaching and learning materials and on the use and analysis of DepEd data, and the correlation of this data with particular policy and programmatic interventions wherever possible.

Disaster impacts on children’s educational outcomes:

We know that hazards disrupt children’s access to education in several ways (not limited to below list):

• school closure due to inundation and/or damage, or use of schools as temporary shelters.
• school days or hours shortened due to damage or use of schools as temporary shelters or damage/destruction of school materials.
• children or teachers not attending due to physical inaccessibility, lack of or cost of transportation, or displacement, family no longer being able to afford the school fees.
• made up time and accelerated learning may not be as conducive to learning
• displaced children’s access and adjustment to school in new location
• psychosocial impacts especially on attention and concentration, for both students and teachers.
• damage to water and sanitation facilities may also have depressive effect on attendance and enrolment.
• Underachievement in exams and its consequences of being left behind.

Each country sets a normative number of school days (eg. 180 days, though many are longer). They also set a normative number of school hours per day for the various levels of instruction. The number of hours in the school day can vary considerably (eg. 5.5 hours per day is common, however in many places the day is shorter and in some longer). Whilst the literature contains many measures and factors in educational equity, the underlying metrics are student-teacher contact hours (as set for different instruction levels eg. early childhood programs and kindergarten, early primary, late primary, middle and upper schools), assuming generally stable teacher attendance, and classroom size (number of students per teacher). In places with recurring school disruption due to flooding, the cumulative impact on these two measures of educational equity across a child’s school ‘career’ have neither being measured nor estimated.

Ultimately, these impacts and variations could be measured in a variety of ways by looking at comparisons between impacted and non-impacted populations in terms of: overall reduced student-teacher contact hours, enrolment, attendance, advancement, continuation between primary and secondary school, drop-out, national test performance and perhaps other measures as well. Though as yet unmeasured, individual impacts can be expected to include short- and long-term consequences for educational achievement and attainment. Outcomes may be impacted by rapid resumption of schooling, by community and student engagement in educational continuity planning.

There may be complicating factors when it comes to measuring hazard induced inequities in educational access. For example:

• enrolment rates are notoriously easy to inflate and are very poorly correlated with actual daily attendance and regular participation in school.
• a variety of factors may inhibit children’s consistent attendance (and therefore lead to lack of success, repetition and drop-out). For example, pressure for children to participate in livelihood or child care activities, distance and safety of the route to school, availability of clothing and footwear in relation to weather.
• lack of appropriate water and sanitation facilities at school is a deterrent especially to girls’ participation.

Educational continuity planning and rapid resumption of education: In many jurisdictions faced with hazard impacts, the general policy is to minimize school days and hours lost. In some cases of large scale emergencies, schools are officially closed for a very limited number of days for safety, to conduct damage assessment and clean-up, and where equity considerations make this practical. Of necessity, school-based management practices also usually allow for schools to open, close, and adjust as necessary, based on local conditions. Policies regarding making up hours and days with a flexible calendar to reach a target percent of normative hours may or may not be in place (eg. in North America and Europe often referred to as “rain” “heat” or “snow days”). Strategies for rapid resumption of schooling, minimizing school days lost, making up hours. School disruption also has impacts on community, family and individual recovery. The success of rapid school resumption seems to also have a ripple effect, making it possible for adults being able to focus on clean-up and recovery and resumption of livelihood activities, including occupational and family-based routines (known predictors of recovery) and improved all of community recovery pathways.

Save the Children and other organizations recommend integrating school disaster management into ongoing school-based management, and taking advance measures at the school level to mitigate damage and to plan for educational continuity (Save the Children, 2016). This process has begun in the Philippines with policies and guidance provided at national scale, but with different levels of opportunity for staff capacity building.

Some of the suggested measures include planning for:

• alternative locations or temporary learning facilities;
• flexible calendar;
• alternative modes of instruction (eg. independent study, self-learning kits, and peer learning circles, accelerated make-up instruction, radio, TV, or mobile or computer-based instruction);
• school clean-up;
• and limited use of schools as temporary shelter.

A range of adaptive practices have been noted in case studies and observations from child-centered organizations. These include:

• pre-positioning of school clean-up kits, and advance plans for clean-up;

• distribution and pre-positioning of sandbags;

• cleaning of drains (Martin, 2011);

• distribution of tarps for protection of leaky school roofs;

• self-learning packages and peer-learning groups for study at home.

Children themselves express their satisfaction with being part of the recovery efforts. For example, in Indonesia, the practice of communal work (‘gotong royong’ or ‘kerja bakti’) saw the routine participation of students in school clean-up efforts as they brought their own mops to school (Martin, 2011). Adults have sometimes recognized children’s agency and ability to contribute to community response and recovery (Taylor & Peace, 2015) as well as prevention, mitigation, and preparedness (Ronan et al., 2016).

Hazard impacts on education sector investments

We know that hazards are destroying education sector investments as stated above. We also know that careful site selection, hazard resistant construction, and a variety of non-structural mitigation measures (eg. Preparing elevated shelving and plastic boxes and covering to protect teaching and learning supplies and equipment from water damage or fastening tall and heavy furniture to the building) can substantially reduce these impacts – but we don’t know by how much.

However, little of this has been quantified, or seen in relation to sustainable development goals for education, and the degree to which hazard impacts are impacting progress in delivering a free quality basic education to all.

Pivotal role of schools in community recovery: Schools provide an important context for restoring familiar roles and routines after disasters, and providing a sense of stability, safety and protection in difficult times. Schools are also recognized to be vital to overall community recovery (Fothergill & Peak, 2015). Schools and communities both have adaptive capacities and coping mechanisms to reduce disruption (Mort et. al. 2016. Lassa 2013. Taylor & Peace, 2016). These strengths may be particularly in evidence in places where a high value is placed on education.

Unique opportunity in the Philippines:

Dep Ed in the Philippines has been collecting data systematically on hazard impacts on schools since 2009.

Over these 5 school years, there were reports of impact from 10 different types of natural and man-made hazards, as well as from use of schools as evacuation centers.

4. RATIONALE

This study aims to complement other recent studies on the barriers to achieving children’s right to a free basic quality education, and to identify significant sources of inequities in educational participation, as the result of hazards, disasters, and climate-change impacts.