Country: Afghanistan
Closing date: 30 Nov 2015
Background
Afghanistan is one of the lowest ranked countries in terms of literacy with around 64% of Afghanistan’s population considered functionally illiterate. To combat this situation UNESCO Kabul launched the Programme “Enhancement of Literacy in Afghanistan (ELA)”, the largest literacy development programme currently in existence in the country. The Programme is implemented in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education’s Literacy Department (LD) and has enhanced the literacy skills of more than 600,000 adult learners across the country over the last 5 years. The ELA Programme conducts nine month courses in basic literacy and numeracy as well as providing training in the promotion of life skills in order to improve the living situations of learners.
The second phase of ELA came to a close in December 2013 with ELA Phase 3 beginning immediately after with the target of reaching 630,000 learners in 30 Provinces over the next 3 years.
The existing curriculum for Literacy and Non-formal Education in Afghanistan, titled LAND Afghan or Basic General Literacy (BGL), was designed in 2004 with the technical support of UNESCO. Years of implementation have (BGL) led to the identification of certain gaps within the current curriculum. LAND Afghan is no longer responsive to the needs and quality of literacy demanded by the people of Afghanistan.
The need for a more demand-driven and learner-centered curriculum was one of the main findings and lessons learned from the ELA 2 Programme. For this reason curriculum revision is a key activity of ELA 3 with the aim of redesigning the existing National Literacy curriculum. In addition, ELA 3 requires the development of a parallel curriculum that integrates basic literacy with specific vocational skills embedded in the literacy, creating a Skills Based Literacy (SBL) programme.
Job Description
Under the general supervision of the Chief of Education and Project Officer and direct supervision of the Assistant Project Officer, successful candidate will be responsible for creation of a curriculum and instructional materials for Skill Based Literacy (SBL). This process will be conducted with full collaboration with the Ministry of Education and with other relevant Ministries (Labour, Women’s Affairs, and Interior).
Main Duties and Responsibilities
- Embed the eight vocational skills with the language and numeracy competencies;
- Guide and assist the development of SBL curriculum and instructional materials;
- Perform other activities relevant for this assignment
Proposed list of activities, deliverables and time framework
Consultant is expected to start with the work from August 2015. The following time framework is tentative and the final one will be agreed together with the consultant. (For details of list of activities, please refer to the attached document.)
Qualifications
- Academic qualifications: Doctorate in the field of Education or other closely related field within Social Sciences. Master’s degree in Education or other closely related field within Social Sciences combined with extensive work experience in the field of curriculum development might be taken into consideration.
- Years of relevant work experience: Successful candidate should be able to demonstrate at least ten years of work experience in the relevant field. However, the main criteria for assessing the work experience will be the relevancy of past work for the advertised assignment.
Competencies
- Excellent written and oral communication skills in English language
- Excellent analytical and presentation skills
- Ability to work in a post-conflict environment (consultant will be required to spend significant amount of time in Afghanistan)
- Experience working with multiple stakeholders (governmental, non-governmental, international organisations)
- Work experience in Afghanistan and/or (post)conflict environment will be considered as a strong asset
- Knowledge of Dari and/or Pashtu languages will be considered as a strong asset
Other Information
Job level Senior Levels consultant
Type of contract Individual Consultant
Duty station UNESCO Kabul Office
Other 7 days leave from duty station is negotiable after completion of evey 6 weeks
How to apply:
How to Apply
Interested candidates are asked to send:
- Up-to-date UNESCO curriculum vitae (https://en.unesco.org/careers/media/3705)
- Cover letter explaining qualifications for the position
- An indication of the approach he/she would adopt to carry out the assignment (including methodology and theoretical framework)
By August 31, 2015, by email to e.procurement@unesco.org
The successful candidate is expected to start work from September, 2015. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.
Thank you for your interest in this UNESCO call.
We look forward to receiving your proposal in due time.