Internship - Education Section

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Objectives:
The objective of the internship is to support UNICEF Lebanon Education Section in the implementation and monitoring of Back to School Campaign and Inclusive Education Pilot project.

Background:
The Education context

The crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic, now in its seventh year, continues to exact a devastating toll on its civilian population. As of December 2016, around 1 million Syrian refugees are registered in Lebanon, of which approximately 482,761 children aged 3-18 years (128,312 children aged 3-5 years, 276,101 children aged 6-14 years, 78,348 children aged 15-18 years). This does not include the estimated 500,000 non-registered refugees in the country . 

Nevertheless, a majority of Syrian refugee children are still faced with significant barriers to access and stay in the formal education system due to language and curriculum differences, safety concerns, household reliance on income from child labour, and violence and discrimination in school. In other words, out of the population of approximately 480,000 registered refugee children (aged 3-18) , around 60% are in school or are attending another form of learning.
Given that few schools accept students with disabilities , Lebanese children with disabilities primarily go to specialized institutions under MOSA, some of which are residential. Currently MOSA pays to specialized NGOs for education and other services to 5,800 children of which 900 residential. This number includes also children with learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia, hyperactivity, etc.) who may also be segregated from mainstream schools.
According to UNESCO report, almost 50% of those who obtain a disability card are not in schooling . A study among people with disabilities in Bekaa found that the majority (54%) of the study’s participants had only reached an educational level below intermediate school, only 7% had attained a vocational certificate and only 6% had university degrees. Illiteracy rate was 50 per cent, considerably higher than the national average (3%) .
There is little experience in public schools on inclusive education apart from the intervention of CSOs and in particular DPOs, such as Forum of the Handicapped  and Youth Association for Blind. These schools however are less than 1 per cent of all schools in the country.

Some private mainstream schools also accept children with disabilities on a case by case basis, but there is no information about the numbers of children served, model of inclusion and types of services available.

According to VASYR 2015, 72% of Syrian children with disabilities are not enrolled in school. The proportion is even higher among children with disabilities living in vulnerable households – the UNHCR household visits revealed that out of 8,360 children with disability 6,682 (80%) were not enrolled in school.  Special institutions contracted by MOSA are not accepting Syrian children with disabilities free of charge. 

AUB-2015 survey reports 62% of children with disabilities among PRL enrolled in UNRWA schools and 9 per cent enrolled in special education, leaving 29 per cent not enrolled in any school at all. It may be that children with disabilities are being excluded from the educational system, indicating the need for greater inclusion and increasing the ability of schools to cater for children with special needs. 
The programme interventions
The education programme of UNICEF Lebanon is based on the RACE II plan (Reaching all children with education) which is based on three pillars: access, quality and system strengthening.
The “Reaching All Children with Education” (RACE) initiative aims to ensure access to quality learning opportunities for all children and adolescents in Lebanon. It was first launched in 2014 by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) in order to provide a framework for a coordinated, government-led education response for the displaced children and youth of Syria that does not compromise the longer term development objectives for the Lebanese education system.

Furthering inclusive education for the most vulnerable children in Lebanon, a new RACE plan, RACE II, (2017 -2021) was launched by MEHE in September 2016, comprising an ambitious five-year programme to sustain increased and equitable access to quality education and learning for 469,311 children and youth aged 3-18 years in Lebanon by holistically addressing access, quality, and systems strengthening. This proposed education response supported by the German Government is planned in synergy with the RACE II and strongly linked to the funding priorities as articulated in the costing scenarios against RACE II, compiled by the RACE Executive Committee.
Inclusive education pilot
MEHE has initiated a pilot project on inclusive education for 30 schools in Lebanon to include children with learning difficulties and disabilities in formal public schools. The pilot will include teacher trainings, support of paraprofessional teams, provision of technical supplies to the schools and the children, etc.  Apart from the pilot, UNICEF will also build the capacity of non-formal education partners in inclusive education.
Back to school campaign
Under a year-long multi-platform initiative, UNICEF leads education sector partners through a national “Back-to-School-Stay-in-school” campaign, including mass and multi-media platforms to disseminate information around enrolment and behaviour change messages. UNICEF organises, through the Sector, all education stakeholders to conduct household visits, case management, parent and community engagement activities as a means of conducting outreach to all families, but particularly to the hardest to reach children who have never been to school or who have been away from school due to child marriage or household reliance on income from child labour.  Outreach workers and field coordinators will also be trained to identify children with special needs during household visits and take necessary measures to refer them to education opportunities.

Scope of work:
Under the supervision and guidance of the Education Specialist, the intern will support the Inclusive Education Programme with the below tasks:
- Conduct research on best practices on inclusive education in MENA region 
- Assist in preparing presentations and briefs about the Back to School Campaign and Inclusive education project based on the information provided.
- Compile and categorize the complaints from the complaints response mechanism, within the Back to School Campaign
- Follow up with stakeholders on the approved action points of “Back to School” Campaign and Inclusive Education Project
- Prepare brief progress reports on the BTS campaign and Inclusive School Project.
- Support the programme assistant with the preparation of field visits related to the inclusive education pilot programme and Back to School Campaign
- If needed, accompany the Supervisor on field visits to the inclusive pilot schools
- Support with the organization of workshops and events related to inclusive education project and back to school campaign

Deliverables and Schedules:
Research Reports, progress reports, presentations, briefs, programme notes – approximately four outputs to be delivered monthly.

Timing:
The assignment is for six months. 
The successful candidate can arrange their working days flexibly, depending on the work plan they jointly prepare with the supervisor. However minimum engagement 32 hours per week is required.

Administrative Issues:
The Intern will need to have their own Laptop Computer. Access to UNICEF network will be provided.

Reporting Requirements:
The Intern will report to the Education Specialist (Children with Disabilities).

Profile Requirements:
• Enrolled in a university degree in education, special education, public policy, social sciences, psychology or other relevant fields.
• Familiarity with key concepts of education, inclusive education
• Programmatic experience in NGO, Government or UN agency, especially in the field of education or disabilities, is an asset.
• Good knowledge of MS Office and computer skills (MS applications, especially Word, Publisher and Excel).
• Strong command of oral and written English. Knowledge of Arabic and/or French is considered an asset.
• A high level of individual responsibility, commitment and initiative.
This is an unpaid internship