Online Courses Development on Curriculum and Pedagogy Global Partnership for Education - Education Sector Plan Implementation Grant Programme

Call for Proposal -(Consulting Firm/ Organization)

Online Courses Development on Curriculum and Pedagogy Global Partnership for Education - Education Sector Plan Implementation Grant Programme (GPE-ESPIG), UNESCO Myanmar

Date Issued: 20 December 2023

Organizational Unit: UNESCO Yangon Project Office

Duty Station: Yangon, Myanmar

Typeof Contract: Contract for Services – Authors (Organizations or legal entities)

Tentative Duration: 15 January 2024 - 15 June 2024 (5 months)

Deadline of Application: 9 January 2024 at 17:00 Hours (Yangon time)

I. Background:

Over the past decade, UNESCO has been strengthening teacher education in Myanmar to ensure that children in Myanmar have access to inclusive, equitable and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

UNESCO, through the Education Sector Program Implementation Grant (ESPIG) project, continues this effort addressing the needs for both pre- and in-service teacher education under ESPIG Outcome Area 2: Ensuring quality teaching and learning for children and youth in Myanmar by strengthening the capacities of education staff and fostering context-responsive, equity-focused learning resources and modalities adapted to the evolving situation.

As an effort to enhance the quality of education delivery, Myanmar Teacher Platform (MTP) has been launched and utilized by many teachers, and educators of different affiliations. MTP provides online courses related to the themes such as Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), Curriculum and Pedagogy (C&P), Education for Sustainable Development (EPSD), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Media and Information Literacy (MIL). The courses under C&P at large enable the educators to be able to: i) understand educational psychology, philosophy and professional knowledge and values that are beneficial to their profession, ii) create context-responsive, inclusive and equity-focused teaching and learning experience, and iii) apply various teaching strategies and assessment approaches to meet the diverse needs of their students.

As such, using this platform and taking a blended learning approach, UNESCO supports teacher training and professional development through online courses development and workshop/training delivery for teachers and teacher trainers working in many types of schools within Myanmar, including but not limited to ethnic, faith-based and community schools. For this, UNESCO Myanmar Project Office is seeking for an organization to develop online courses and deliver workshop/training sessions.

II. Objectives:

The objective of this Call for Proposal is to develop online courses and deliver workshop/training sessions.

III. Work Assignment:

Under the overall authority of the Director of UNESCO Bangkok Regional Office, the direct supervision of the Head of UNESCO Yangon Project Office, and the day-to-day guidance of the Curriculum Specialist and in close collaboration with the ESPIG project team, the Contractor will perform the following tasks:

1. Conduct two 2-hour workshop/training sessions on CSE and MTB-MLE for teacher educators and mobile teacher trainers of relevant local partners to facilitate the learning of educators using blended learning approaches;
2. Develop 18 online courses by integrating the new pre-service teacher education curriculum while reflecting the international standards and trends, including mainstreaming inclusion and equity, Mother Tongue–Based (MTB) teaching approaches, educational management and leadership skills, to meet the needs of educators and local partners in Myanmar. The table below provides the detailed outline of these online courses.

Beginner – Set 1

1. Understanding Your Students
2. Using SMART for Learning Success
3. Approaches to Assessment

Beginner/Inter (Mixed Course) – Set 2

1. Exploring Personal Philosophies in Education
2. Effective Lesson Planning
3. CSE and CSE Informed Classroom Practive

Beginner/Inter (Mixed Course) – Set 3

1. Exploring Relevant Strategies for Your Classroom
2. Learner-centred and Competency-based Approach to Teaching
3. Assessment Strategies

Beginner – Set 4

1. 21st Century Skills Development: Communication and Collaboration
2. Blended Learning and Virtual Learning
3. Designing Assessment Responsive to Student's Learning

Beginner/Inter (Mixed Course) – Set 5

1. Inclusive Pedagogies and Classroom Practices
2. Enhancing meaningful learning experience through MTB-MLE
3. Building a Positive Learning Environment

Beginner/Inter (Mixed Course) – Set 6

1. Improving Students’ Performance Through Collaborative and Cooperative Learning

2. TCSF for Teacher Professional Development

3. Feedback as a Tool for Improving Learning Outcomes

   3. The Contractor will, for the development of 18 online courses as outlined in the table above:

   1. Review pre-service teacher education curriculum (Year 1 to 3 subjects including syllabi, TBs, TGs, and handbooks, Teacher Competency Standards Framework (TCSF) for beginning teachers, get familiar with these materials but not limited to other reference materials, and utilize them in developing online course materials, by ensuring well-aligned online course materials which can fulfill the learning needs of educators and local partners in Myanmar;
   2. Review existing Curriculum and Pedagogy courses on Myanmar Teacher Platform (MTP) to map out the course materials and ensure the development of well-aligned online courses;
   3. Conduct further research to ensure the online materials, in terms of overarching concepts, content, learning activities, teaching, and learning strategies and assessment approaches, are contextualized to meet the needs of educators and local partners in Myanmar while reflecting the international standards and trends, including mainstreaming inclusion and equity, Mother Tongue-Based (MTB) teaching approaches, educational management and leadership skills;
   4. Develop 18 online courses online learning materials: 11 courses for beginners and 7 courses for mixed level (beginner and intermediate), available in both English and Myanmar languages, along with two workshop or training sessions on Conflict Sensitive Education (CSE) and MTB-MLE (1 session each). The course should include lectures, PowerPoint presentations, videos, audios, video scripts, quizzes, and assessments. The majority of the lecture content is to be presented with 2-3 audio-visual materials as such videos, cartoons, etc. to improve understanding of the concepts and enhance the overall learning experience, following UNESCO online course guideline;
   5. Organize and format all materials to make sure that they comply to the UNESCO Graphical Standards and Logo Toolkit (https://bit.ly/3fwQDou), ED Sector Visual Identity Guidelines (https://bit.ly/2OwHBOe) and UNESCO Style Manual (https://bit.ly/37b6qXb);
   6. Translate all course components into Myanmar language, using appropriate terms, following the terms used in pre-service teacher education curriculum and UNESCO’s guidelines on common terminology for translation;
   7. Revise and finalize the materials of e-learning courses in English and Myanmar incorporating comments provided by UNESCO;
   8. Organize and format the online learning materials including illustrations, infographics and photographs, and teaching and learning resources to make sure that they meet the requirements of UNESCO guides (see item 4), are up to standard and are of good quality;
   9. Record videos in English language, approximately 5-10 minutes following the specific guidelines given by UNESCO and provide all original final files to UNESCO (See below section iii-vi);
   10. Secure the intellectual property rights by using the “permission consent form” (provided by UNESCO) to obtain written authorization from the original source of work wherever a photo, illustration, figure, diagram or other visual materials from the third party is used;
   11. Provide a proper credit or citation to the original work of the third-party materials. For any photo, illustration, figure, diagram, and table created by author, the “Source: author” should be placed underneath aforementioned materials; and
   12. Communicate with UNESCO regularly to provide updates on the course material/component and revision process and to make clarifications on the comments received on course materials.

4. The Contractor may choose the application most suitable to produce content. However, it is recommended to utilize applications requiring minimal calibration and interface mastery, especially for repeated editing during the later stages of development.

5. Industry standards for video editing software include Adobe Premiere, Adobe Edge Final Cut Pro. These products are best for delivering the final video files in various application formats, suitable for seamless sharing on web and social media.

6. The Contractor will ensure that technical specifications for videos should have been as follows:

• Ratio: 1280x720, 1920x1080 (HD), 720p or 1080p
• Deinterlacing: YES
• Codec: H.264 / AAC
• Frame Rate: 24 - 30fps
• Image sequence: PNG, JPEG, GIF, DPX, OpenEXR, TIFF or Targa
• Video format: MOV, MP4
• Web Video (social media): H.264 of differentframe sizes with various resolutions for Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube, X (formally known as Twitter)

IV. Deliverables and Timeline:

All deliverables are submitted in English and Myanmar languages with original, editable files to UNESCO (such as MS-Word, MS-PowerPoint, MOV, MP4, etc.). The assigned tasks must be submitted by the following deadlines:

1. Courses content outline for all 18 online courses (Word Format) by 29 January 2024.
2. Draft e-learning course materials/components in English for the first online course (see # 1 of the Set 1 in the table provided in section I) by 2 February 2024.
3. Draft e-learning course materials/components in Myanmar for the first online course by 7 February 2024.
4. Final e-learning course materials/components in both English and Myanmar for the first online course by 12 February 2024.
5. Draft e-learning course materials/components in English for two online courses (see # 2 to 3 of the Set 1 in the table provided in section I) by 15 February 2024.
6. Draft e-learning course materials/components in Myanmar for the two online courses by 20 February 2024.
7. Final e-learning course materials/components in both English and Myanmar for the two online courses by 28 February 2024.
8. Draft e-learning course materials/components in English for the 2nd set of three online courses (see # 4 to 6 of the Set 2 in the table provided in section I) by 29 February 2024.
9. Draft e-learning course materials/components in Myanmar for the 2nd set of three online courses by 8 March 2024.
10. Draft e-learning course materials/components in English for the 3rd set of three online courses (see # 7 to 9 of the Set 3 in the table provided in section I) by 15 March 2024.
11. Final e-learning course materials/components in both English and Myanmar for the 2nd set of three online courses by 19 March 2024.
12. Draft e-learning course materials/components in Myanmar for the 3rd set of three online courses by 25 March 2024.
13. Training/Workshop on CSE informed classroom practice course (2 hours session) (PowerPoint/Training materials) by 29 March 2024.
14. Draft e-learning course materials/components in Myanmar for the 3rd set of three online courses by 1 April 2024.
15. Final e-learning course materials/components in both English and Myanmar for the 3rd set of three online courses by 5 April 2024.
16. Draft e-learning course materials/components in Myanmar for the 4th set of three online courses by 10 April 2024.
17. Final e-learning course materials/components in both English and Myanmar for the 4th set of three online courses by 19 April 2024.
18. Draft e-learning course materials/components in English for the 5th set of three online courses (see # 13 to 15 of the Set 5 in the table provided in section I) by 22 April 2024.
19. Draft e-learning course materials/components in Myanmar for the 5th set of three online courses by 30 April 2024.
20. Final e-learning course materials/components in both English and Myanmar for the 5th set of three online courses by 8 May 2024.
21. Draft e-learning course materials/components in English for the 6th set of three online courses (see # 16 to 18 of the Set 6 in the table provided in section I) by 13 May 2024.
22. Training/Workshop on MTB-MLE course (2 hours session) (PowerPoint/Training materials) by 20 May 2024.
23. Draft e-learning course materials/components in Myanmar for the 6th set of three online courses by 22 May 2024.
24. Final e-learning course materials/components in both English and Myanmar for the 6th set of three online courses by 31 May 2024.

V. Condition of Payments:

1. 100% of this assignment will be authorized for payment upon the approval of the UNESCO project officer who will determine if the assignments meet the required quality standard.
2. Any possible bank charges of the Contractor by the intermediate bank(s) and/or the Contractor’s bank shall be borne by the Contractor and charged within the amount of the contract.
3. UNESCO reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if the quality is unsatisfactory and/or if they are not delivered on time to the required standard of quality.
4. First payment (50%) after submission of the deliverables in IV (1-11), and final payment (50%) after submission of the deliverables in IV (12-24).

VI. Qualifications for Specialized Knowledge/Experience:

Organization

Eligible organizations are local and international education service providers, focused on teacher education and have extensive work with pre-service teacher education and continued professional development for educators (teacher educators, teachers, trainers, etc.) and e-learning course development. Some criteria for application are as follows:

Required Qualifications:

• A good knowledge of pre-service teacher education curriculum in Myanmar and learning needs of the different educators would be a great advantage;
• At least 5 years of experience in trainings and in teacher professional development and related fields is required, preferably with experience in e-learning materials development;
• Sufficient technical support professionals for training materials and online course development with appropriate experience in education, international development, or a related field;
• Sufficient professionals with excellent communication skills and excellent writing skills in English;
• Translation from English language to Myanmar language that are up to UNESCO’s standard and of good quality;
• Proficiency in using Microsoft office and appropriate tools to produce high quality audio-visual resources (PowerPoint, Videos, visual aids and organizers, illustrations, MOV, MP4, etc.); and
• Excellent project management skills, including the ability to meet the deadline and manage resources effectively.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Previous experience international organizations, and/or the UN organizations are preferred; and
• Previous experiences in developing pre-service teacher education online courses will be an advantage.

Personnel/staff who will implement the activities.

Required Qualifications:

• A degree in the field of education, development, or related field;
• At least five years of experience in the field of education and/or training provision;
• Excellent knowledge on Myanmar context, particularly pre-service teacher education;
• Experience in technical support for training materials and online course development with appropriate experience in education, international development, or a related field;
• Ability to think strategically and creative problem solving; and
• Ability to work with flexibility and collaboration is essential.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Previous experience international organizations, and/or the UN organizations are preferred; and
• Previous experiences in developing pre-service teacher education training materials and online courses will be an advantage.

How to apply

Interested organizations are invited to submit in writing to the UNESCO Myanmar Project Office:

• Technical Proposal clearly referencing “Online Courses Development on Curriculum and Pedagogy”, indicating 1) qualifications and experiences that make suitable for the assignment, 2) the methodology/ approaches and workplan to be adopted to carry out the assignment, 3) detailed CVs of the team for the assignment 4) profile of the organization.
• Financial Proposal indicating all the necessary cost in the budget breakdown with unit cost for each item.

UNESCO places great emphasis on ensuring that the objectives of the work assignment, as described in the Terms of Reference, are met. Accordingly, in evaluating the applications for the assignment, attention will focus first and foremost on the technical elements. From those proposals deemed suitable in terms of the criteria in the Terms of Reference, UNESCO shall select the proposal that offers the Organization best value for money.

Your application should reach yangon@unesco.org by email no later than 17:00 Hours (Yangon time) on 9 January 2024.

Only short-listed organizations will be contacted.