Education in Emergency Coordinator (Education Department, Ministry of Health and Social Development) - Anguilla

The consultant(s) will work under the direct supervision of the ECD Specialist of UNICEF Eastern Caribbean Area Office (Based in Barbados) and will also work in close coordination with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, the Education Services Planner and the Chief Education Officer, as well as other key partners in Anguilla, including Education Officers and school Principals. The Education system in Anguilla needs to take advantage of the opportunity to reflect and to rebuild a more resilient and strong inclusive system for all the children and adolescents in Anguilla

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BACKGROUND

Hurricane Irma battered Anguilla threatening livelihoods and causing one death, serious structural damages to housing, buildings including schools, infrastructure and displacing many people in Anguilla. Following the event, Anguilla’s Department of Emergency Management collaborated with Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) to conduct a detailed needs assessment of the situation. The United Nations were part of the assessment teams.

Approximately 3,778 children under 18 years old were affected by the impact of Hurricane Irma with approximately 1,058 of them being boys and girls under five years old. All of the primary schools and the secondary school experienced significant damage to roofing, windows, doors and educational equipment and learning resources in some instances. The start of the new school year was delayed as a result of the impact of the hurricane. Three of the buildings in three primary schools were demolished, and the reconstruction efforts have already started. The school system resumed in temporary learning spaces, merging classrooms and shift systems in the existing schools.

Within the early childhood development sector there are fourteen (14) registered Early Childhood Development Centres – Day Care Centres (ECD) which cater to the 0-2+ age group. These centres fall under the responsibility of the social development sector. There are nine (9) government registered ECD Centres (preschool) which cater to the early education of the 3-5 age group. These fall under the responsibility of the education sector. Some of these centres also received damage from winds and rain.

While the interruption of children’s education was kept to a minimum, and the loss of learning days will be compensated, the education system needs to build resilience for the future events. Due to Climate Change, hurricanes in the Caribbean are foreseen to become more powerful and frequent. A resilient education system is one which will be inclusive of all children, prepare schools for such natural disasters in the future, will be able to manage the risks and minimize the damage, and rapidly respond to the situation in order to minimize the interruption of children’s early development and education. Only by including the most excluded children in the resilience education system will every child’s rights be fulfilled by being able to access basic social services and the social protection system in Anguilla.

PURPOSE OF ACTIVITY/ASSIGNMENT

The consultant(s) will work under the direct supervision of the ECD Specialist of UNICEF Eastern Caribbean Area Office (Based in Barbados) and will also work in close coordination with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, the Education Services Planner and the Chief Education Officer, as well as other key partners in Anguilla, including Education Officers and school Principals.

The Education system in Anguilla needs to take advantage of the opportunity to reflect and to rebuild a more resilient and strong inclusive system for all the children and adolescents in Anguilla. To do so, it is necessary to:

• Review the Ministry of Education’s system and structure, review the existing institutional arrangements at central and local level, to respond more effectively to multi-hazards. This would require reviewing and revisiting existing policies and guidelines.
• Review the national curriculum and textbooks, to guarantee that the curriculum is fully aligned with education resilient principles and international recommendation.
• Strengthening systemic capacity to deal effectively with post-disaster response, recovery and reconstruction: These would include mechanisms to address the immediate needs as well as to ensure that educational infrastructure and systems, meet higher standards and levels of safety. There Should be adequate provisioning of human resources and technical capacity at the national and district levels to ensure safety and quality at all phases.
• Building back better: All new educational, and partially new, institutions should be resilient to future disasters (building with safe and adequately sized staircases, proper exists, furnishing and equipment such as to minimize potential harm to school occupants, and ensure the provision of minimum enabling conditions for enhanced learning, including basic WASH facilities, among others.
• Interventions in non-structural aspects: Enhancing disaster resilience is not only about building back better from a structural perspective. It requires intervention in non-structural aspects of the education system such as the curriculum and textbooks to ensure that teachers and students internalize safety issues and can act in times of need. This also requires strengthened disaster preparedness and response at the school and community level through school-based and community based training and planning in DRM .
• Implement and evaluate simulations and drills, at different levels and systematize the lessons learned during the simulation.

KEY EXPECTED RESULTS

At the end of December 2018, the Department of Education has defined specific measures to be adopted in the education system in Anguilla in the following areas:

• Policy and legislation
• Pedagogical training processes
• Curriculum and teaching materials
• School leadership and participation
• Community participation

At the end of February 2019, the Department of Education has developed or strengthened:

(1) Disaster risk management policy and plans (2) Curriculum documents and have started to implement the Safe School Programme, with its three components: Safe spaces, education programmes and disaster risk management plans at national and school level.

METHODOLOGY

• The recommendations and suggestions need to be made guided by the lessons learned after Hurricane Irma in Anguilla.
• There should be an extensive consultative process with national and regional actors to guide implementation of the safe Schools’ Programme.
• There should be an extensive consultative process with school principals, teachers and students for effective implementation of the Safe Schools’ Programme.
• There should be an extensive consultative process with families and communities to ensure full participation.

WORK ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW

• Strategic planning – Comprehensive plan of all the UNICEF components in the Safe School Programme framework
• Review of relevant documents inclusive of:
  • Lessons Learned – Post Irma Response
  • Policies and legislation
  • Existing Curriculum documents
• Develop an overall DRM policy and plan for the Ministry and Department of Education.
• Draft a proposal to promote school leadership and school community participation in the development of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) plans at school level :
  • Implementing the School leadership and school community participatory approach to DRM plan development in a selected school to validate it
  • making any necessary adjustments to the approach and implementing it in another school to validate it.
• Work with school leadership and school community to develop DRM plans at school level for seven schools (six primary and one secondary) using the validated approach.
• Monitor the implementation of the Safe Schools international strategy recommendations to ensure its full implementation.
• Comprehensive documentation will include:
  • Recommendations in relation to amendments to policies and legislation;
  • Validation reports in relation to the participatory approach to DRM plan development;
  • DRM policy and plan for Ministry and Department of Education;
• DRM plans for seven (7) schools.

TRAVEL & DSA

The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including bearing the costs visas and travel insurance.

Accommodation, meals and incidentals costs are included in the salary fee.

MINIMUM EXPERIENCE / QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor degree in Education or social sciences
• A minimum of five years of professional experience, with relevant qualifications in Education in Emergencies at the National, Regional or international level.
• Experience in Education in Emergencies especially in preparedness and response.
• Experience in programme development and in developing implementation systems and processes at National, Regional or International levels.
• Sound knowledge and application of human rights and results-based programming.
• Excellent writing skills in English.
• Adequate computer skills including internet navigation, must own laptop, be readily accessible via email.
• Experience working independently and from a distance.
• Experience working with multiple partners.
• Fluency in English required

DURATION OF CONTRACT

10 months

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

CONDITIONS OF SERVICE

Prior to commencing the contract, the following conditions must be met:

An Individual Consultant will be required to submit a statement of good health, which indicates that the Consultant is fit for work and travel. In addition, the Consultant is required to certify in the Health Statement that he/she is covered by medical/health insurance. The statement includes confirmation that he/she has been informed of any inoculation required for the country or countries to which travel is authorized. He/she takes full responsibility for the accuracy of the statement.

RECOURSE         

UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs is incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines. Performance indicators against which the satisfactory conclusion of this contract will be assessed including timeliness/quality of submission and responsiveness to UNICEF and counterpart feedback.

PROPERTY RIGHTS

UNICEF shall hold all property rights, such as copyright, patents and registered trademarks, on matters directly related to, or derived from, the work carried out through this contract with UNICEF.  

MANDATORY TRAININGS

Prior to the signature of the contract, consultants/individual contractors must submit certificates of completion of the following mandatory trainings as part of the hiring documentation:

1. The Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) e-learning course is mandatory for all UN Funds and Programmes Personnel including volunteers and contractors. This self-paced course can take you about 90 minutes to complete and can be found at: https://agora.unicef.org/course/info.php?id=7380
2. When traveling on UNICEF business, the Basic Security in the Field (BSITF) and the Advanced Security in the Field (ASITF) trainings are mandatory. UNDSS trainings are available at: https://training.dss.un.org/

HOW TO APPLY:

Prospective consultants should apply through UNICEF’s E-recruitment System by accessing the following link: http://jobs.unicef.org and typing in the job number 512378 in the search engine, no later than COB (EST) on Friday, 30 April 2018. The submission package should include the following:

1. A cover letter
2. A detailed curriculum vitae

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.