System Strengthening MEL Consultant at Peas

Job Description

PEAS’ flagship System Strengthening programme is the Inspect & Improve programme in Uganda. Since 2019, PEAS Uganda has worked in partnership with the Directorate of Education Standards (DES) to strengthen the use of inspections in driving secondary school improvement. This makes up part of DES’ efforts to update the secondary-level inspection framework and tools to drive up quality across the secondary education system in Uganda. PEAS and DES co-designed the Inspect & Improve programme, which establishes a cycle of continuous improvement. This starts with an annual inspection to identify schools’ strengths and areas for improvement. This is followed by supporting secondary school leaders to use inspection data to develop evidence-based School Improvement Plans, and ongoing support and monitoring visits and calls to support leaders to implement their plans. As of 2023, the Inspect & Improve programme is now jointly implemented by PEAS and DES in 215 secondary schools, including 15 non-state secondary schools. Early external evidence suggests leaders feel they are improving their leadership and management skills, and that this is having a wider impact across school operations, including on teacher and student attendance and teaching quality (NFER 2021, 2022).

Purpose: System Strengthening MEL Consultant will Support the DES team to create effective systems that enable them to use, report and track inspection data to inform performance trends and support secondary school improvement.

Key Responsibilities:
Outreach
• Scan and review the inspection reports, including regional reports, to identify critical indicators that should be regularly monitored and inform decision-making, including ensuring use of gender-disaggregated data where possible.
• Advise on the best data to adopt while reporting, including supporting generation of initial evidence-based reports in respect to various stakeholders needs. Ensure the inclusion of gender disaggregated data where necessary.
Building the capacity of the DES MEL and other DES team members nationally to appreciate the importance of data and evidence-based reporting, and supporting DES to create processes or system to ensure these indicators can be shared with respective MoES departments responsible to respond.
• Make clear recommendations for the development of MEL tools, and make prototypes where possible, to support quality assurance monitoring at national or regional level. These could be tracking tools and supporting quality assurance by principal and senior inspectors.
• This will include working with DES to identify key data points within inspection data and develop systems to track and review progress at national and regional level.
• It will also include building the capacity of the DES team to use data effectively to plan, report and direct resources towards activities that will have the greatest impact on secondary school quality, safety, and inclusion.
• Make clear recommendations for the development of relevant dashboards, and conduct analysis that summarizes inspection performance trends to inform a clear way forward/direction.
• Review all data sources and systems, and where necessary advice DES on possible enhancements that support generation of relevant data, to support decision making and stakeholder engagement.
• Where necessary, the consultant will be required to attend various meetings both at PEAS and MoES, in line with MEL support.
• Ready to devote time understand existing MEL infrastructure at both DES and PEAS, to position him/herself to support DES and deliver on this role effectively.
• As part of understanding the I&I programme, the consultant might be supported to visit selected schools supported to improve by both DES and PEAS.

PERSON SPECIFICATIONS
Experience and Qualifications.
• Master’s degree in related field.
• Post Graduate Diploma in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning or bachelor’s degree in statistics, Qualitative Economics or related Field a master’s degree in related field is an added advantage.
• At least 5 years’ professional experience in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning.
• Experience working in Sub-Saharan African contexts, with deep understanding of context in Uganda.
• Experience working with Ministry of Education and some government institutions, able to adapt, engage and influence to have tasks delivered.
• Experience working with staff in multiple locations and maintaining effective communications.
• Experience in assessing individual or institutional MEL gaps and design training materials to support with capacity enhancements.

Desired:
• Skills in data analysis.
• Writing and communication skills.
• Experience in assessing individual and institutional MEL gaps and designing training content to support capacity enhancement.

Skills & Personal attributes:
• Strong analytical skills, able to quickly draw insights from the financial data to help schools improve their financial management.
• Excellent attention to detail, with good practice of quality assuring own work to deliver accurate accounts.
• A natural influencer, able to communicate persuasively in a way which delivers compliance without burning bridges.
• High level of integrity and strength of character, prepared to be disliked if that is what is needed to do the right thing.
• Willing to travel and work in hard-to-reach areas, occasionally under strenuous conditions.
• A resourceful outlook, prepared to fight for value for money and suggest creative approaches to achieving school sustainability.