72066324RFI00001 - New Primary Education Activity.pdf

72066324RFI00001 New Primary Education in Crisis Activity

Section I: Response Requirements

USAID/Ethiopia seeks feedback on the following questions.

Key Questions for respondents

In view of the preliminary information in Section IV, respondents are requested to provide answers, comments, and recommendations in response to the specific question below in the objective’s context:

Feedback for USAID (no more than 5 pages total)

1. How do you view the capability for coordination of emergency education response activities at the federal and regional level?

2. What evidence-based pedagogies should USAID consider to target low-performing students in crisis-affected settings in Ethiopia?

3. What evidence-based caregiver and community support should USAID consider to target learning for children in crisis-affected settings in Ethiopia?

4. What is the feasibility of targeting lowest-performing learners in Ethiopia?

5. What are your suggestions for ways to consider geographic targeting?

6. With this draft results framework, how do you think USAID could strategically sequence, layer, and integrate with other donor-funded activities in the education sector and beyond?

7. What are your recommendations to encourage localization during implementation?

Organization Capabilities (no more than 2 pages total)

If your organization is interested in this funding opportunity, please provide a capabilities statement of no more than two pages. Include the following:

● Capabilities for implementing evidence-based pedagogy

● Capabilities for implementing effective service delivery in crisis-affect areas in Ethiopia

Section II: Eligibility

USAID/Ethiopia will accept responses from all interested organizations or individuals.

Section III: Submission Instructions

Please provide a cover page, that includes:

a. Organization name and address, including point of contact name and contact information.

b. Organization type (e.g., non-governmental organization, social enterprise, civil society organization);

c. Brief description of your organization, statement why it would be interested in this type of activity and applying as a prime. If a team or consortium is envisioned, please provide the names of the potential partner organizations.

While there are no limits on the length of submissions accepted, we value concise issue-specific responses with reference to page and section numbers in the draft description of objectives.

Please send responses to this RFI via email to the addresses listed on the cover page by the closing date listed on the same cover page. Responses to the RFI must be written in English, submitted in Microsoft Word compatible formats and use 12-point Times New Roman font.

Please number each page consecutively. USAID values concise, issue-specific comments.

Please be reminded that you will only receive an electronic confirmation acknowledging receipt of your response. No feedback or debrief will be provided on comments received. Phone calls or hard copy responses will not be accepted.

Responses may be used by USAID without restriction or limitation, therefore, proprietary information should not be sent. Again, your voluntary responses will be used to inform USAID’s new primary education activity design. The comments received may or may not be incorporated into any future solicitation. Please note again, that respondents will not receive individualized feedback. All submissions will be considered Government property and will not be returned.

Section IV: Preliminary Information - USAID New Primary Education in Crisis Activity

USAID is sharing preliminary information about a new primary education activity in order to gather inputs and feedback from potential partners and other stakeholders. The new USAID primary education activity will continue working in areas affected by crises in Ethiopia while deepening interventions to promote holistic foundational learning for children in these areas over 5 years.

Background and Situation Analysis

In 2020/2021, 29% of children aged 7-14 were out of school in Ethiopia.1 These numbers have likely increased sharply since then due to subsequent recurrent crises of conflict, drought, and other natural and man-made disasters across the country. In this volatile environment, children in Ethiopia will continue to face education disruptions due to crises and their aftermath for at least the next few years.

The consequences of these disruptions include difficulties accessing safe learning environments, learning foundational skills and stunted education trajectories. This has long-term implications for children's wellbeing and for Ethiopia’s overall development and requires urgent action.

Even prior to the onset of crises in Ethiopia, the education sector experienced progress in some areas but not in improving foundational learning outcomes sustainably. Ninety percent of children in Ethiopia of late primary school age today are not proficient in reading after adjusting for out-of-school children.2 In particular, the lowest performing students do not experience pathways to learning foundational skills. Figure 1 shows growth over time from 2014-2018 during a previous USAID activity by language and extent to which students attained scores at or above benchmarks.

Progress in learning was uneven across languages over time. The significant proportion of zero scores over time for some regions suggests a need for different approaches to support foundational learning for struggling learners. These gaps have likely been exacerbated due to crises across Ethiopia.

Figure 1: READ M&E Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) scores

1 World Bank. 2022. Learning Poverty in Ethiopia: Status, Key Factors, and Priority Reduction Strategies. © World Bank.

2 Same as above.

Globally, evidence since COVID-19 suggests that learning losses have been particularly steep for poorer and younger students. According to the World Bank Report on learning loss, this is at least in part due to the greater difficulty of making up for the time with teachers lost by these groups of students.3 For Ethiopia, this is an urgent issue as the country focuses on rebuilding the education system in areas affected by crises while also continuing to recover from the COVID pandemic.

Evidence and Gaps All interventions under this new activity must be informed by existing evidence about what works to improve foundational learning outcomes, especially in crisis-affected settings. Where evidence is thin or non-existent, this activity will contribute to knowledge gaps.

Globally, some of the most successful USAID early grade reading activities have incorporated the science of reading in classroom instructional approaches, with structured pedagogical support for teachers. The 2023 Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel report on Smart Buys highlights the following approaches as proven to be cost effective interventions to improve foundational learning outcomes.4

● Providing information on the benefits, costs, and quality of education

● Supporting teachers with structured pedagogy (a package that includes structured lesson plans, learning materials, and ongoing teacher support)

● Targeting teaching instruction by learning level, not grade (in or out of school)

Evidence on effective instructional approaches in foundational learning is thinner specifically in crisis-affected settings, but numerous promising approaches with positive results for foundational learning have been and are being tested in these contexts. There is a need to further identify successful approaches based upon research-based evidence that improve student learning outcomes while ensuring a safe and nurturing school and classroom environment in crisis-affected environments. These goals can be harmonious and result in robust learning outcomes that can be sustained and scaled across programs in the sector.

Theory of Change and Results Framework

Theory of Change IF Ethiopian federal and regional education systems are equipped to support learning during and after crises AND schools and educators provide safe, joyful, evidence-based foundational skills instruction AND communities and caregivers support children’s learning and wellbeing during and after crises THEN the most vulnerable children will gain holistic foundational skills, even when coping with crises and their aftermath.

3 Rogers, H., & Sabarwal, SS. (September 2022). Learning Losses: What to do about the heavy cost of covid-19 on children, youth, and future productivity. World Bank Group Flier.

4 Banerjee, Abhijit; Andrab, Tahir; Banerji, Rukmini; Dynarski, Susan; Glennerster, Rachel; Grantham-Mcgregor, Sally; Muralidharan, Karthik;

Piper, Benjamin; Jaime Saavedra Chanduvi; Yoshikawa, Hirokazu; Ruto, Sara; Schmelkes, Sylvia.

2023 Cost-effective Approaches to Improve Global Learning - What does Recent Evidence Tell Us are “Smart Buys” for Improving Learning in Low-and Middle-income Countries? (English). Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group.

http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099420106132331608/IDU0977f73d7022b1047770980c0c5a14598eef8 http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099420106132331608/IDU0977f73d7022b1047770980c0c5a14598eef8

Where most activities target a wider group of children and may find success in improving averages, this activity will focus on strategies to target the significant portion of children who do not gain foundational skills on time. Success of this activity will be measured on learning gains for these lowest performing children.

Results Framework

Objective: Improving holistic foundational skills5 learning and systems resilience for the most vulnerable6 primary school age children affected by crises in Ethiopia.

1. Federal and regional capacity to prepare for and coordinate education service delivery during acute crisis through to recovery.

2. School and classroom environments, formal and informal, support student learning and wellbeing.

3. Communities and caregivers7 promote children’s learning, wellbeing, and resilience.

1.1 Expanded federal and

regional capacity for coordination of emergency education and recovery tasks.

2.1 Educators effectively utilize

existing teaching and learning materials to support student learning and wellbeing.

3.1 Identification of out-of-school learners

and support to enroll and be retained in learning.

1.2 Recognized standards for

evidence-based pedagogical approaches such as accelerated learning including curriculum, teaching and learning materials, and examination and transition to mainstream classes.

2.2 Educators use evidence-

based pedagogies based on assessments of children’s learning.

3.2 School communities support functional

referral pathways for at-risk children to access protection services.

1.3 Regional early warning

systems function to mitigate disruptions to learning and support educational continuity in the face of sudden crisis.

2.3 Educators facilitate

evidence-based pedagogical approaches such as accelerated, teaching at the right level, and remedial education where relevant.

3.3 School communities develop and

implement action plans for continuing school safety, learning and wellbeing for children and educators.

2.3 Educators employ sound

pedagogy to promote children’s wellbeing.

3.4 Caregivers access and enable home- and

community-based learning.

2.4 Educators participate

regularly in peer learning and

5 USAID Basic Education Policy (2018) defines foundational skills as literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional skills.

6 USAID Basic Education Policy (2018) defines marginalized children and vulnerable groups as, "includes girls, children affected by or emerging from armed conflict or humanitarian crises, children with disabilities, children in remote or rural areas (including those who lack access to safe water and sanitation), religious or ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, orphans and children affected by HIV/AIDS, child laborers, married adolescents, and victims of trafficking."

7 The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action defines caregiver as: "An individual, community, or institution (including the State) with clear responsibility (by custom or by law) for the well-being of the child."

mentorship to support continuous improvement.

2.5 School leaders support

teacher improvement and facilitate student learning and wellbeing.

Cross-cutting: Iteration, adaptation, and sharing learning on best practices within the education sector to promote scale up, where appropriate.

Gender The 2023 USAID Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy promotes “transformative” as one of seven key principles. Gender-transformative programming in education seeks to utilize all parts of an education system to transform stereotypes, attitudes, norms and practices by challenging power relations, rethinking gender norms and binaries, and raising critical consciousness about the root causes of inequality and systems of oppression. To achieve gender-transformative education programming, this activity will take an intersectional approach that considers and addresses how a person’s overlapping identities contribute to their likelihood of accessing and benefiting from education. Note that gender-responsive programming is a good step forward in contexts where gender-transformative programming may not be safe or appropriate.

Resilience:

Given Ethiopia’s recurrent shocks and stressors, induced by conflict and climate-based shocks, it is necessary to ensure that individuals and the education system have the tools and techniques to support learning continuity and sustainability of past and present investments in education. For USAID, resilience is the ability of people, households, communities, countries, and systems to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth. A resilient education system ideally continues to provide safe, equitable access to quality and relevant education and social services that help reinforce or grow literacy, numeracy, or social and emotional skills in the face of conflict or crisis. In order to strengthen resilience and individual and system levels, this activity will leverage USAID’s guidance on resilience and education, as outlined in USAID’s White Paper on Resilience and Education (See USAID’s Education and Resilience White Paper).

Collaboration and Coordination Pillars of support for children’s learning and wellbeing extend well beyond the interventions that this activity can conduct.

In order to build a more comprehensive network of support for children, this activity will link up to and operate alongside a number of ongoing and forthcoming programs in the education sector and beyond.

Government of Ethiopia This activity is clearly and intentionally aligned with the Ministry of Education strategic planning documents. These include the Education Sector development Plan (ESDP IV) and the new Ethiopia Education Transformation Program.

https://www.usaid.gov/gender-policy https://www.eccnetwork.net/resources/transforming-systems-times-adversity-education-and-resilience-white-paper

Programs from other partners The details of forthcoming major programs from the World Bank, UNICEF, and other partners are still being determined.

This activity will be a vital collaborative partner for these forthcoming programs by contributing learning for the Ethiopia education sector on best practices for foundational learning in various circumstances across the country. This activity may layer geographically so as to maximize possibilities for synergies with other programs.

Other USAID and U.S. Government Activities This activity may link up with other USAID and other USG activities providing critical interventions that support children’s wellbeing such as school feeding, child protection, nutrition, WASH, health services, and disaster risk management, livelihoods and more. This may include sharing of technical resources and expertise and/or layering in geographic areas to maximize impact.

Targeting This activity will target primary school age children, and include out-of-school children who may be suited to those grade levels. This may include overage children, based on the understanding that many children will enter primary school late.

As this activity will focus on strategies to target the significant portion of children who do not gain foundational skills on time, within these grade levels and age ranges the activity will target the lowest performing students and/or those children who have dropped out or who are at risk of dropout.

Exact geographic targeting for this activity will be determined in collaboration with the Apparently Successful Applicant, Ministry of Education, and Regional Education Bureaus. Criteria will include:

● Areas severely affected by conflict.

● Areas severely affected by drought and other natural disasters.

● Areas where learning outcomes are lowest.

● Areas to maximize layering with interventions from other partners including other USAID activities.

Due to the complex nature of achieving foundational learning crisis-affected setting relative to the expected budget for this activity, USAID anticipates the scale of direct services delivery for this activity to be small; however, tested approaches will be scalable to much larger populations.