INVITATION TO BID FOR CONSULTANCY FOR DEVELOP STUDENTS DROP- OUT TRACKING SYSTEM AND ESTABLISH EASY TRANSFER MECHANISM – Somalia

ANNEX 1 : Consultancy Terms of Reference

Insert Terms of Reference

CALL FOR PROPOSAL TO DEVELOP STUDENTS DROP- OUT TRACKING SYSTEM AND ESTABLISH EASY TRANSFER MECHANISM

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is a new global funding platform for Education in Emergencies established in 2016 during the World Humanitarian Summit. The ECW is a pool fund focusing on closing the global funding gap for Education in Emergencies, including through multi-year funding for protracted crisis.

ECW was established by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to help reposition education as a priority on the humanitarian agenda, usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground and foster additional funding to ensure that every crisis-affected child and young person is in school and learning.

 On 20^th July-2019, the Government of Puntland, Education Cannot Wait and Save the Children launched a comprehensive new multi-year education programme to improve learning and wellbeing of children affected by crises in Puntland, Somalia.

The programme is being implemented by Save the Children in partnership with the Government of Puntland and other implementing partners, CARE and SIDRA to bridge the education gap for children and youth who have been forced out of education due to conflict and drought.

Access to education in Puntland is still limited with more than 41.2 per cent of children still out of school. Many of these children are recovering from significant psychological distress as the result of the recurring drought and conflict in the region. Girls are especially at risk for gender based violence, early marriage and being left behind. The programme puts special emphasis on reaching children with disabilities. This, and many other barriers often times, force boys and girls, especially in rural areas to drop out of schools. Unfortunately, there is no authentic, real time data on the number of children who have dropped out of schools as the MOEHE just estimates the figures.

• • Introduction

In order to try to solve the above mystery and problem of accurate data, Save the children international-Garowe office, in collaboration  with the MoEHE is seeking qualified vendors/consultants, classified as Technical Specialists or Solution Providers to  develop a school drop-out tracking system for Puntland students and establish easy transfer mechanism for Puntland Ministry of Education and Higher Education “MoE&HE”.

This document establishes the deliverables required in response to the call for this proposal. Respondents will be evaluated based on quantitative and qualitative scoring chart/checklist developed for the project. Respondents will also be evaluated for technical specifications, functionalities, ease of use, and procedural methods of the type of proposal submitted. Respondents are advised to carefully evaluate this proposal and identify all costs associated with the project development, including, software maintenance (recurring or otherwise). All research costs for the respondents are at the bidder’s cost.

• • Objective

The main objective of this task is to develop an aesthetically appealing and user-friendly drop- out tracking system for Puntland students in order to underline the major reasons of student’s dropping out of education and take mitigation steps to solve the issue.

• • Specific objectives

-a. Develop a school drop-out tracking system for students

-b. Students movement/transfer system

The drop out tracking system to be developed must be linked to the EMIS system under ministry of education which is the main database in which MoEHE keeps data for all students in Puntland education system. Once fully developed, the student tracking system will be used to better flow and track student’s movement and transfers to other schools and those completely dropping out of school at the end of academic year. The system must also be able to keep information/data for longer period of time for future reference.

• • Responsibilities of the Consultant/Firm

This procurement is for the designing, development and installation of online/Offline computer based students drop out tracking system and establish easy transferable mechanism/software for the ministry of education and higher education at central, regional and district levels. The consultancy/company is expected to provide the following services:

• • The selected consultant/Firms shall be responsible for analysing the requirements for designing, developing and supporting towards setting up comprehensive students drop out tracking system/software for MoEHE at central, regional and district levels as well as operationalizing of the system within the agreed time frame.

• • The selected consultant/firm should be responsible to link the developed drop out tracking system to the EMIS system under ministry of education.

• • The consultant/firm will support the ministry of Education and Higher Education during the design, software development, full implementation and operationalization of the system.

• • The selected firm/consultant will provide training to key MOEHE officials/staff, including regional EMIS technical staff and some of the school head-teachers to ensure smooth functioning of the software/system

• • The selected consultant/firm will conduct through training for ministry staff (EMIS staff, REOs, DEOs, teachers) on the usage and functionality of the new software/system.

• • The selected consultant/firm will lead the system development process providing weekly progress updates by way of face-to-face meetings, phone calls and progress reports

• • Consultant/firm will support to pilot this software to some of ECW supported schools in main towns to test  effectiveness and efficiency .

• • Consultant should consider the applicability of the system in the remote area by taking in to account the challenges of internet (offline and online data entry)

Detailed systems development plan with milestones, activities and tasks, including progress and payment milestones.

• • Scope document

• • High level design

• • Functional and non-functional specifications in detail

• • Testing (includes test scripts and documentation of results)

• • System test

• • Systems integration test

• • Non-functional (performance) test

• • User acceptance test

• • • • User/subscriber
        • • Each School basic and complete information
        • • Geographical target areas;
        • • Students in categorization (M/F, Age)
        • • Each students complete information (names, age, and photo of students, parent, class, district, region, school name and scores of that student in each academic year).
        • • Possible reason of dropping out of school
        • • Duration/Time frame
        • • Possible mitigation steps
        • • Must be able to provide graphical analysis of all data

        Application features: Features the application/system must include but not limited to:

    • • User logins

• • User roles with different privileges (e.g. admin, editor, subscriber)

• • Basic operations (add, edit, save, save as, view, print, etc.) for creating new records, and print and search filters for retrieving records.

• • Photo upload

• • Importing/exporting data to other formats, particularly to/from Excel/CSV, and PDF
    • • Reporting capabilities with the capacity to perform analytical functions in different settings like gender, region/district, exam result ranges, age groups, and so on
    • • File attachment, storage, and retrieval

• • • • End-user manualManuals
    • • Technical support manual (includes documentation of source code for support, maintenance and enhancement)

5.0 TECHNICAL (IT) SPECIFICATIONS OF THE DROP OUT TRACKING SYSTEM.

1. 1. Data management and functioning

• • The software shall be compatible with latest internet explorer and operating system.

• • Should have enough flexibility to accommodate the frequent changes and open to customization as required for the future.

• • The software/system shall be scalable in terms of performance and functionality.

• • Able to run on offline when there is no internet connection.

• • The software product should provide user manual of the system.

• • Should have a dynamic access menu control.

• • Software/system should support use of multiple users at a time.

• • The response time of the software system should be as under: For data transaction like – add, update, edit, delete etc.- Response time will be less than one seconds or less. For complex transactions: – Response time will be two seconds but, in any case, time for completion of the transaction shall not exceed five seconds. Response time for “help, exit/entry of menus, scrolling or paging, error processing etc. shall be one second or less.

1. 1. Security and data integrity

• • Software should be free and consultancy firm will hand over all the code of the system to MoEHE.

• • Should have the necessary security safeguards mechanism.

• • Provide data integrity features that will prevent more than one user from changing the same information simultaneously.

• • Provide multiuse access to data, along with security features that prevent some users from viewing and/or changing certain type of information.

• • The software shall provide Log in ID and password for any users who use the system with basic level of data entry, data modification, and update, add/delete records.

• • The software shall keep the track of user login / sign out and activities performed on database each time and keep specific logs or history data sets.

• • Any modification (insert, delete, and update) for the database shall be coordinated and done by administrator.

• • Provide proper data backup, and recovery mechanism.

6.0 Proposal Contents/ REQUIREMENT BY THE APPLICANT Must Include:

• • The consultant should develop and share an inception report, detailing (the following highlighted)

• • Scope of Work Statement (including a detailed WBS) aligned with the objective of the project (see “OBJECTIVES” section above

• • Detailed project plan with progress milestones and equivalent payments

• • Description of the technology used and why it is chosen

• • Description of the bidder’s software development methodology.

• • Possible risks and risk mitigations to be taken to avoid any development hindrances

• • Resumes/CVs of the project team, their respective roles in the project, and relevant works they had done previously

• • References (please provide at least 3 reference client sites of similar project size, complexity and technology. SCI might request contact with your clients).

• • Educational qualification, Training and Work Experience of all Key Staff should be in IT and detail knowledge on Puntland Education Sector

• • The lead consultant should have at least degree in engineering/computer Science /telecommunication engineering or IT and programmers must have at least bachelor degree in IT.

• • At least 5 years’ experience of operations in software development and installation.

• • Experience of successful design, develop, commissioning and support of electronic based On-line Data Collection and processing related Software in the last five years.

• • The consultant/Firm must have, at least one, successfully designed, developed, installed and commissioned such web based Educational management information system (EMIS) software for any college or government departments or government corporation or public limited organization.

• • A detailed cost for all required and optional components of the solution

• • Identify all additional expenses required to complete implementation that are not shown in the above costs.

• • All bidder must provide complete end-to-end solutions including source code, documentation, and training as well as seamless integration, and a description of the maintenance.

7.0. COST ESTIMATE AND TIMEFRAME

The Consultants are requested to quote their price for this assignment and to mention when they will be available to carry out this assignment. Due to the urgency of the assignment the project is to be completed within period of 2 months (starting from the day of contract awarding,) including all phases of test and full ownership hand over to Puntland ministry of education and higher education. 

8.0. Terms to note:

• • All source code, documentation and deliverables are to be transferred to Ministry of Education and Higher Education of Puntland upon completion and full ownership rights assigned to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education of Puntland

• • No rights are to be assigned to any third parties

• • No rights are accorded to prospective winning bidder to make references to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education of Puntland on any media, advertisement, or proposal without written expressed authorization from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education of Puntland.

9.0. APPLICATION PROCESS.

Interested Consultants shall submit their Applications through the Email Address provided below on or before the deadline. The selection committee will review all applications as they arrive. All applicants must meet the minimum requirements described above, and those unable to meet these requirements will not be considered.

All applications should be sent to puntland.supplychain@savethechildren.org with the subject line, “Application for DEVELOPING STUDENTS DROP OUT TRACKING SYSTEM AND

ESTABLISH EASY TRANSFER MECHANISM FOR MOEHE.

Budget Breakdown in Below Structure