I. Background Information

Increasing urbanization, a growing middle class and a large and young population position the Philippines as a country with strong potential for higher economic growth, global competitiveness and greater poverty reduction. The benefits of this growth, however, have yet to fully trickle-down to its workforce. Unemployment, inequality and skills shortages still hamper the country’s progress.

Meanwhile, this growth trend occurs at a time when technological development, climate change, demographic shifts, and the COVID-19 pandemic are transforming the world of work and creating immense opportunities for upgrading industries and workforce skills in the country.

With an average of two million enrollees each year, the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system has potential to help the country reduce skills gaps and shortages and ultimately improve labour market outcomes. However, the mismatch between TVET graduates’ skills and industry requirements remains a challenge. Meanwhile, the ever-evolving technological advancements call for new sets of skills.

The Skills for Prosperity Project in the Philippines (SfP Philippines; the Project), funded by the UK Global Prosperity Fund and implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO), works with key government agencies, employers’ organisations, trade unions and other stakeholders to further boost  skills development and TVET systems in the country.  SfP Philippines  aims to enhance national capacity to increase inclusive, mutually beneficial economic development resulting from greater, more equitable employability and productivity by enabling policies and practices that ensure cost-effectiveness, access, and sustained quality of TVET. The Project has four areas of achievement:

• Enhanced equity. The Project shall facilitate broadening of access to skills development and TVET systems for marginalized groups – prioritizing youth and women – by incorporating gender and social inclusion as a key element in all activities, and by providing technical advice for the adoption of necessary changes in national, regional and provincial policies, strategies, regulations and institutional arrangements. Additionally, it also develops and applies training approaches that specifically meet the needs of marginalized groups to open up the TVET system to more people in the country. 
   
• Improved quality of skills and TVET systems. It aims to assist in the process of developing upgraded competency standards and of their application to development of TVET programmes curricula, and competency assessment and certification to meet the increasing requirements of the economy for a higher skilled workforce. Additionally, it aims to enhance TVET competency assessment and certification through wider use of digital technologies.
   
• Enhanced industry relevance of skills and TVET systems. The Project seeks to contribute to labour market information system strengthening, particularly in data collection and analysis of job market demand for skilled workforce. Moreover, it also promotes adoption of lifelong learning principles and recognition of workers who gained professional qualifications through various skills development mechanisms. It also promotes a learner-centred approach in TVET.
   
• Improved cost-effectiveness of skills development and TVET systems financing. It will review the country’s practices on industry engagement and stakeholder participation in TVET financing, and assists in development and piloting a joint public-private financing mechanism, aiming for greater private sector participation in TVET financing. Ultimately, this initiative will bring about affordability and greater effectiveness of the TVET system.

Using an implementation approach that highlights gender and social inclusion, the Project focuses on three economic sectors recognized for its potential for employment creation particularly for marginalized groups. These are: agricultural sector with focus on food production; construction sector with focus on skills for green building practices; and, information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) sector with focus on skills for the digital economy. The Project also has an area-based project focus with activities to test models at the community level to be implemented in Visayas where development challenges still linger  despite the area having registered brisk economic growth comparable to other fast-growing regions in the Philippines.

This Terms of Reference (TOR) is formulated to support the achievement of one of the Project’s Relevance outputs, particularly the strengthening of TVET and labour market information system, data collection and analysis.

II. Areas of required technical services

The Contractor shall provide technical guidance towards enhancing the TVET and Labour Market Information (LMI) systems in the Philippines.

The Contractor’s responsibility shall consist of:

1. Providing technical guidance to the national expert(s) engaged by the SfP Project to
   1. conduct the review of TVET and Labour Market Information (LMI) systems in the Philippines in order to better inform and guide the TVET system in planning and delivery of skills training, and
   2. produce the national report on the subject, in order to ensure that all essential areas are addressed and all available required information at both national and regional levels is identified and collected by the involved national expert(s)
2. Determining the areas for improvement of the LMI system in the Philippines, as far as it concerns informing and guiding the TVET system in planning and delivery of skills training, based on
   1. inputs from the national report produced by the national expert(s)
   2. assessment on the possibility of big-data assisted jobs and skills predictive analysis, and
   3. the successful international experience on the subject

Particular attention shall be paid to the analysis and recommendations on institutional arrangements/mechanisms for more coordinated and integrated skills demands data collection and processing, and to the collection and analysis of the data

1. on demand for skilled workforce
2. on informal sector, and
3. on marginalized groups, addressing inter alia gender and social inclusion aspects,

which would enable the TVET system in the country to interpret such data and use the results as guidance to enhance the TVET system’s demand-driven focus

     3.  For all activities: Producing and submitting to the Project the completion reports            on the contribution made to each of the activities. The reports shall describe in            reasonable detail the process of the conducted design/planning and                              implementation activities, the achieved result and anticipated impact.

For any workshops, training sessions, meetings, and similar events, all non-technical aspects such as the organizational and logistics aspects, identification and ensuring the availability of national participants, etc., which are related to the organization of the events shall remain under the operational and financial responsibility of the Project. The Contractor’s responsibility shall remain for providing the required technical guidance to the design, preparation and delivery of the events, as detailed in the Annex to the present TORs.

Measures to promote International Labour Standards, Social Dialogue and Gender Equality

In delivering the work agreed upon under this Service Contract, the Contractor will ensure that activities promote the application of relevant international labour standards, including by taking into account the views expressed by any of the Supervisory Bodies of the ILO on the application of these standards by the Philippines, especially where they relate to Vocational Training and Skills Development. Also, in its interventions under this Service Contract, the Contractor will promote social dialogue by involving, wherever possible, the social partners in decision-making, delivery and/or as beneficiaries of activities. In promoting social dialogue, it will take into account the views of the ILO as to which specific Workers’ and Employers’ organizations to involve in activities. The Contractor will promote gender equality and inclusion by mainstreaming gender and inclusion aspects in all activities undertaken under the present Service Contract, including by using gender and inclusion -disaggregated data for research, training and knowledge-sharing activities, and ensuring, whenever possible, at least proportional participation of women in the activities.

Working Languages of the assignment

The Contractor shall provide all related services, deliverables, reports and communication under the present agreement in English language.

Specifications of the Contractor’s eligibility:

Participation in the RFP is open to the legally recognized for-profit entities.

• Demonstrable international experience in implementing successfully development projects addressing the thematic areas included in the TORs
• Involvement of key consultants with a minimum of 10 years of experience of international consultancies in the areas related to the tasks to be implemented under the assignment and with the following minimum credentials:

• possession of at least a Masters’ Degree in Economics, Education or Sociology or related sciences
• considerable international experience of project work in the thematic areas included in the TORs
• excellent command of English

III. Deliverables

The Deliverables are summarized in Section VIII. “Annex”, which forms an integral part of these Terms of Reference.

In the event that for implementation of specific activities the Contractor requires technical resources which it does not have (e.g. specific technical and policy advice which may be available only at the social partners’ or any other specialised organizations), the Contractor may subcontract certain activities subject to obtaining prior written authorization to subcontract and the approval by the ILO of the subcontractor selected.

IV. Management arrangements

The Contractor will conduct its work under the overall guidance of the Chief Technical Adviser (CTA) of the Project and in close coordination with the designated Programme Officer(s) in the country.

V. Travel Expenses

The proposed assignment is home-based in the country of recruitment/engagement and will not cover any travel-related expenses. The Contractor is expected to engage in the assignment via on-line interaction/meetings with representatives of the relevant entities, both international and national ones, as may be required, including any Project counterparts (ILO constituents and key Project stakeholders including government ministries, technical organizations, social partner organizations and other entities as appropriate) in the Philippines, etc..

VI. Payments Schedule

The settlement for the assignment is payable in one lump sum within the established timeframe as per ILO rules and procedures for Service Contracts following submission, and acceptance by ILO, of all Deliverables and of the corresponding reports.

VII. Submission of Proposals

Participation in the RFP is open to the legally recognized for-profit entities. Interested organizations are invited to submit Proposals for the provision of services described in details in Section VIII. “Annex” on or before 12:00 noon Manila time zone on Monday, January 11, 2021. The Technical Proposals must be submitted via e-mail to the SfP-PHI Project’s following address: mnlsfpproject@ilo.org, and the Financial Proposals must be submitted as password-locked/protected files via e-mail to the following address manila@ilo.org   Proposals and modifications to Proposals received after the proposal receipt deadline, or submitted with unlocked/unprotected by password Financial Proposals, or proposals submitted by any other means will be rejected. Proposals must include at least the following documents:

• copies of documents confirming the legal status of the applicant
• documentary evidence of eligibility of the applicant in line with above requirements
• a technical proposal describing in detail the activities to be undertaken for implementation of each of the outputs, which may be expanded by the participating bidding organisations as deemed appropriate, as well as the planned indicative completion timeframe
• a financial proposal indicating the number of expert workdays required for implementing each of the tasks and related activities will be carried out and the daily fee rate(s). This information shall be provided either in the corresponding fields of the table in Section VIII. “Annex” of the present TORs, or as a separate spreadsheet document reflecting the same format. All prices shall be quoted in USD (United States Dollars).

The submitted Proposals shall include an extended description/explanation of the way the bidding organization would envisage implementing the Tasks outlined in the TORs and related activities.

The proposed dates of completion for each of the activities within the overall indicated timeframe for implementation shall be treated as indicative. The Contractor will have the flexibility to reasonably adjust them, in consultation with the Project Team, depending on the circumstances in the concerned Regions, as applicable.

A prospective bidding organization requiring any clarification of the TOR document may notify ILO on or before 12:00 noon Manila time zone on Monday, December 21, 2020 via e-mail at the following address: mnlsfpproject@ilo.org. The ILO’s response will be made via e-mail within three business days only to the respective organization that requested clarification. A written copy of the response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be placed on the same web page on which the present TORs are listed/posted.

Short-listed bidding organizations will be contacted for further review and negotiations, as may be necessary.

VIII. Annex – the indicative List of Deliverables and related details (may be expanded by the bidding organisations as deemed appropriate, and proposed as part of the RFP process)

• Each Deliverable will be viewed as completed on receipt of a corresponding Report describing in reasonable detail the process of the conducted design/planning and implementation activities and the achieved result and anticipated impact
• Designing the Pilot projects shall involve as well developing the TORs for, and provision of technical advice on, the selection of local experts and Pilot coordinators for the Pilot projects and for any essential components thereof