Terms of Reference for Undertaking Study on Effectiveness of Media Use to Raise Gender Awareness

Terms of Reference for undertaking study on the effectiveness of media use to raise gender awareness

Project name: Girls Education Empowerment Project in Somalia (GEEPS)

Location(s) of the study: Jubaland, Puntland, and Somaliland

Organization: CARE International, Somalia

Duration: 50 days

Start date: July – Sept 2022

Background

CARE is a non-governmental organization committed to working with poor women, men, boys, girls, communities, and institutions to have a significant impact on the underlying causes of poverty. CARE seeks to contribute to economic and social transformation by unleashing the power of the most vulnerable women and girls. CARE has been providing emergency relief and lifesaving assistance to the Somali people since 1981. The main program activities since then have included projects in water and sanitation, sustainable pastoralist activities, civil society and media development, small-scale enterprise development, primary school education, teacher training, adult literacy, and vocational training. CARE works in partnership with Somali and international aid agencies, civil society leaders, and local authorities. CARE Somalia is currently operational in the northern regions of Puntland and Somaliland and south and central regions of Galmudug, Hirshabelle, South West, and Jubaland. The strategy is to adopt a program approach to demonstrate impact and promote organizational learning; reduce the impact of emergencies on vulnerable communities, particularly women and children; improve governance and access to services and resources.

CARE’s Global Affairs Canada-funded Girls Empowerment and Education Project in Somalia (GEEPS) aims to improve learning outcomes for girls, adolescent girls, and young women, in Jubaland, Puntland, and Somaliland States of Somalia. The project aims to reach 27,077 girls, 24,070 boys, and 13,539 parents. GEEPS will contribute to addressing one of the major barriers to development in Somalia – the gender gap in education. The project responds to this persistent need at a time when the COVID-19 crisis threatens to further worsen education outcomes for the most marginalized girls and wipe out years of development gains. GEEPS’s design builds upon robust evidence of what works to provide a holistic intervention that will improve equity in access, learning, and retention in a sustainable manner through the combination of social norm change, girl-led action, improved school practices and strengthened system capacity to address gender and inclusion issues. The project uses a multi-layered intersectional approach that considers the intersections between gender, disability, ethnicity, clan identities and climate change, acknowledging the diverse needs and conditions of different population subgroups in Somalia. GEEPS’ design builds upon three existing models with demonstrated impact in the Somali context: SOMGEP-T’s gender-focused teacher training, Girls’ Empowerment Forums, and gender training for CECs. GEEPS leverages CARE’s existing interventions, research capacity, and relationships for increased efficiency in the use of resources; responsiveness to a dynamic environment; increased reach among the most marginalized girls; and inclusive dialogue to support implementation processes.

Intermediate Outcome 1: Increased equitable access to safe, secure quality inclusive education and learning by girls, including those with disabilities and affected by displacement, in conflict and disaster-affected areas of Somalia

Intermediate Outcome 1: Increased equitable access to safe, secure quality inclusive education and learning by girls, including those with disabilities and affected by displacement, in conflict and disaster-affected areas of Somalia

Immediate outcome 2: Increased capacity of schools and vulnerable households to reduce social, cultural, and physical barriers for adolescent girls, including girls with disabilities (GwDs), to participate in education

Immediate outcome 3: Increased capacity of girls, adolescent girls, and women in conflict-affected areas to claim their right to education and make their voices heard in decision-making processes that affect them

Intermediate outcome 2: Improved equitable and coordinated provision of innovative, safe, quality, gender-responsive, and evidence-based formal and non-formal education to the end of secondary school for girls, including those with disabilities and affected by displacement, in conflict and disaster-affected areas of Somalia

Immediate outcome 1: Enhanced capacity of education stakeholders (local governments and low-cost private schools) to integrate adolescent girls, including GwDs and girls from highly marginalized groups, into education systems to the end of secondary school or its non-formal equivalent.

Immediate outcome 2: Enhanced capacity of schools and respective Community Education Committees (CECs) to provide quality gender-sensitive and innovative teacher training, quality teaching and learning materials, and safe, inclusive working spaces

Immediate outcome 3: Improved capacity of education ministries to collect and use data to monitor the barriers and progress in marginalized girls’ learning, participation, and completion

Rationale for the study [1]

Access to education remains extremely limited in Somalia, with a 32% gross enrolment ratio (GER) at primary level and an estimated three million children out of school. There are major differences in primary enrolment rates in terms of gender (35% boys, 29% girls), region (ranging from an estimated 61% in Puntland to 30% in Jubaland), urban/rural location (75% of the primary students are estimated to be in cities), and livelihood, with pastoralists ranking the lowest among all subgroups with a 3% GER.

Late enrolment is widespread in Somalia and when associated with dropout, substantially reduces the average number of years in school, particularly for girls. Only 31% of the girls and 47% of the boys are enrolled in school by age 6, and enrolment rates start declining at age 13 for both girls and boys. In practice, this means that the majority of the girls are unlikely to complete primary education before reaching puberty and dropping out of school.

Learning outcomes in Somalia are affected by a range of school, household, and individual-level factors. Teacher capacity is a major barrier to learning: the majority of the students demonstrate skills far below the expected grade level, reflecting teachers’ limited qualifications and lack of capacity to support students who are struggling to master subject content. In South Central Somalia, only 30% of male and 27% of female teachers have a degree in education, and nearly half of the teachers have only completed primary (13%) or secondary education (33%). Boys have systematically higher learning outcomes, compared to girls, reflecting gender norms that prioritize the allocation of household resources for boys, enhance their classroom participation, result in higher expectations for boys and negatively affect classroom practices towards girls. Moreover, only 17% of the primary teachers in South Central Somalia are female, with even lower proportions in rural areas of Northern Somalia, which contributes to gendered practices at school. Drivers of poor learning outcomes for girls include poverty, pastoralism (particularly in rural areas of Northern Somalia), speaking a minority language, lack of learning resources at school, lack of school toilets, lack of water at school, lack of female teachers, and teacher absenteeism. Having a disability, particularly mental health issues (anxiety / depression), is associated with poorer learning outcomes. The protracted closure of schools in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to result in severe learning losses and dropout, particularly among girls. A recent tracking study conducted by a CARE project in South Somalia indicated that 7% of the marginalized girls enrolled in formal schools had dropped out after schools reopened, while 20% were not attending class. These results indicate the need for swift follow-up actions to prevent a major increase in dropout rates.

GEEPS developed media content of television and radio spots in consultation with MoEs’ Gender Units and as well as Women Rights Organizations. The formulation of the messages considered the key barriers identified during the project’s baseline. The messages were finalized and presented to nine pilot schools during the pilot exercise. The project sought feedback from various segments of the community including CECs, religious/ traditional leaders, parents, youth leaders, female role models, and teachers to ensure the messages are appropriate to the context. Participants shared their thoughts on the messages. The feedback provided fed into the final version of the message content. In Jubaland, the project and the MoE Gender Department, with the support of theatre groups, agreed to select one of the projects supported schools in Kismayo and train girls to develop and present a drama on the importance of girls’ education and challenges faced by girls at school and home. The video content of the drama was produced with the support of media companies. The project intends to fully roll out the contents through television and radio broadcasts in early August 2022 of Year 2 of the project to encourage additional girls to enroll in GEEPS schools.

The following are the details of the videos produced:

Zone Name of the video Duration

Jubaland Drama and poem on girl’s education 17:23 minutes

Puntland Girl’s education and house chores

Puntland Message on reading clubs, importance of parents to

support children learning 1:09 minutes

Puntland Message on children with special needs 1:42 minutes

Puntland Child rights to education 0:59 minutes

Somaliland Girl’s education 2:51 minutes

Somaliland Message on children with special needs 2:50 minutes

Specific objectives

1. To provide evidence and establish a baseline of current community awareness toward gender in education.
2. To determine the impact of current media campaign approaches of the GEEPS project on raising gender awareness and influencing perceptions of gender and education (through comparing baseline and endline).
3. To identify specific recommendations related to media campaigns of gender awareness, particularly concerning changing behavior around gender in education.

Scope of work

The consultant will be expected to conduct a community-level quantitative and qualitative study before and after media content has been rolled out to communities. This study is expected to be conducted in the catchment area of around 18 schools, stratified by zone (8 in Jubaland, 5 in Puntland, and 5 in Somaliland) and randomly selected within zones. The random selection should exclude the nine schools where the media content was pilot tested. The study conducted before media content has been rolled out will be used to establish a baseline around social norms and perceptions of sending girls to school and gender awareness of the benefits of education for girls in the communities. The second study will be conducted after the media content has been rolled out and examine the changes in social norms and perceptions, as well as the impact of the media on enrollment in school.

Study participants should include WROs, community leaders, school leaders, parents, girls and boys enrolled in the schools. Both quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (FGDs, KIIs, vignettes) methods are expected to be used.

In particular, the consultant will be expected to:

1. Develop the data collection tools (qualitative and quantitative), train enumerators on the tools and pilot test the tools.
2. Conduct a community level quantitative and qualitative study of the perceptions of sending girls to school and gender awareness in GEEPS target areas before media content is rolled out.
3. Conduct a community level quantitative and qualitative study of the perceptions of sending girls to school and gender awareness in GEEPS target areas after media content is rolled out.
4. Review and assess the impact of the media content, paying particular attention to messaging, medium, and content.
5. Carry out analysis of the data, reporting findings and provide recommendations on the effectiveness of media campaigns for use of gender awareness.

The consultant will be expected to hire enumerators for the data collection and supervise the data collection process ensuring quality assurance and confidentiality of data.

Ethical protocols

The study must consider the safety of participants and especially children at all stages of the data collection. The selected consultant/s will need to demonstrate how they have considered the protection of children through the different data collection stages, including recruitment and training of enumerators, data collection and data entry/storage.

The selected consultant/s is required to set out their approach to ensuring complete compliance with international good practice concerning research ethics and protocols particularly concerning safeguarding children, vulnerable groups (including people with disabilities) and those in fragile and conflict-affected states. Consideration should be given to:

• administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect the confidentiality of those participating;
• physical safeguards for those conducting research;
• data protection and secure maintenance procedures for personal information;
• parental consent concerning data collection from children or collation of data about children;
• age- and ability-appropriate assent processes based on reasonable assumptions about comprehension for the ages of children and the disabilities they intend to involve in the research; and
• Age-appropriate participation of children, including in the development of data collection tools.

Expected Tasks

Task Days

Inception report detailing study methodology, approaches and detailed

Work plan (this should include reviewing the project’s media content and

Talking to project staff about the aims of the content) 4

Development of data collection tools 4

Training of enumerators on tools 3

Pilot testing tools 1

Baseline data collection, including data quality assurance 8

Baseline data analysis and cleaning, including verifying data 5

Presentation of baseline data collection findings to CARE 1

Endline data collection, including data quality assurance 8

Data analysis and cleaning, including verifying data 5

Final report writing 10

Presentation of final report to CARE 1

Total 50

CARE will be expected to review all deliverables, provide feedback on tools, reports and presentations, conduct a secondary analysis of the data, and attend the training provided to enumerators. CARE will also supervise the data collection and organize logistics around data collection rounds including providing lists of schools.

Deliverables

In reference to the scope of work, the consultant team is expected to submit the following:

1. An inception report including:
   • Methodology
   • Sampling
   • Draft data collection tools
   • Detailed work plan outlining all tasks to be completed by each of the members of the consultant team
2. Data collection protocols
3. Enumerators’ training plans
4. Complete clean datasets in Excel
5. An independent report that provides an analysis of the data

CARE will review all deliverables and provide feedback to the consultant within three business days of receiving the deliverable.

Expected duration of the assignment

The consultancy shall be executed within a maximum of 50 days between July 15 and September 3, 2022, commencing after signing the contract. The proposal should include a detailed schedule.

Budget

The budget prepared by the consultant/s should cover all the activities outlined above, including design, data collection, cleaning, analysis and reporting. This budget is inclusive of all costs covering team member costs, travel, research costs and any other costs associated with the completion of the work including where required costs for reasonable adjustment. The selected consultant is required to organize and fund their own duty of care arrangements as required.

The consultant/s is required to provide a fully costed proposal in the form of a price schedule that as a minimum should include:

• Sub-total of fees for the delivery of any task or deliverable;
• Expenses and overheads broken down by deliverables;
• Reasonable adjustment costs; and
• Total costs before and after any taxes that are applicable.

The selected consultant/s are required to provide a payment schedule based on milestone payments for the successful delivery of each deliverable.

Proposals should include the following:

• Technical proposal –approach to the study; work plan with milestones; how meet qualifications.
• Financial proposal
• CVs of all involved persons

Professional Skills and Qualifications

Qualifications: The selected consultant/s is required to clearly identify and provide CVs for all those proposed in the team, clearly stating their roles and responsibilities for the study.

The proposed person or team should include the technical expertise and practical experience required to deliver the scope of work and outputs, in particular, with regards to:

• Design: the team should include skills and expertise required to design, plan and conduct electronic data collection in fragile contexts, including developing qualitative and quantitative tools;
• Experience with evaluating the impact of media content in Somalia (particularly around gender norms);
• Relevant subject matter knowledge and experience: at least 5 years of experience required on conducting research with children and adolescents, the education sector, media, gender to ensure that the design and methods are as relevant and meaningful as possible given the aims and objectives of the project and the context in which it is being delivered;
• Data collection management: manage a data collection process from end-to-end;
• Country experience: it is particularly important that the team has the appropriate country knowledge /experience and ability to interpret findings from a contextual perspective, as required to conduct the research;
• Data management and data cleaning. Ability to supervise the collection, entry (if required), cleaning and management of large data sets.
• Safety and ethical considerations: Ensuring the whole process adhere to best practice for research with children including the implementation of child protection policy and procedures to ensure safety of participants.

[1]07 May 2021: Project Implementation Plan (GEEPS)