National Consultant on Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) Competency Standards Development for Skills for Prosperity (SfP) Project –Philippines

Location: Home-based

Implementation Period: 60 (sixty) workdays on an intermittent basis over the period from May 15, 2021 to November 15, 2021 with the deadline for submission of all Deliverables not later than November 15, 2021.

Contract Duration: The legal duration of the contract shall be set from May 15, to December 15, 2021 in order to accommodate for the related internal requirements of the ILO.

1.  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 (2) 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 (SfP) Project in the Philippines, 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.  The Project 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 (4) 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-centered 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 (3) 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 Quality outputs, particularly the TVET qualifications and programs are based on occupational standards and/or internationally-tested methodologies delivered by certified instructors. It has been many years since TESDA has established and operating the system of competency standards so a review of the existing system now is important in order to determine areas for improvement in developing effective TVET competency standards and related processes.      

 2.    Objectives of this assignment

 The objectives of the assignment are:

1.   To review and provide an analysis of national practices of competency standards and qualifications development in selected sectors: agriculture sector with the focus on food production, construction sector with focus on skills and qualifications for green building practices and information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) sector with focus on skills for the digital economy; and to describe how the existing system have been implemented in these sectors.

2.  To identify and describe the key stakeholders, organizations and processes involved in the development and accreditation of national competency standards and qualifications, development of competency-based curricula and learning resources using the examples of the above 3 sectors.

3.  To locate and map (where they are, their level of participation, completion and accreditation) the women and youth in the economic sectors in pilot areas in the Philippines and provide an analysis for presenting issues and concerns, challenges and gaps with the end in view of improving methodologies for competency standard development and qualifications, and competency-based curricula responsive to the needs of women and the youth and aligning with industry needs. 

4. Review and produce an up-to-date baseline of existing competency standards which are available to be applied in the Philippines for development of qualifications in the three selected economic sectors listed above. Identify and flag those standards and qualifications that are available for each of the above sectors in each of the three regions in the Visayas (Regions 6, 7 and 8) and provide recommendations on areas for improvement.

3. Scope of Work

The Consultant shall undertake the tasks as indicated in Section 11. ‘Annex’ under each of the Deliverables therein.

4. Responsibilities of the Consultant

The present assignment will involve close coordination and collaboration with the consulting company engaged by the Project to review and reflect both international and national best practices and experience in the area of Competency Standards development. To carry out the objectives of the assignment, the Consultant shall:

• Develop work plan with a timeline for the assignment
• Collect relevant documents from the respective sources
• Convene meetings with project partners and key stakeholders and prepare meeting notes
• Work together with the international consultant to be engaged by the project
• Collaborate with the other consultants as indicated by the Project in the process of implementing the Deliverables
• Produce the reports as indicated in Section 11 ‘Annex’ under each of the Deliverables therein, and a final stock-taking report summarizing the accomplished deliverables, and the findings and recommendations towards improving the subject areas addressed during the assignment
• Incorporate feedback of project team including comments of project partners and stakeholders to finalize the final stock-taking report and recommendations therein.

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 Consultant’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 and Social Inclusion

In delivering the work agreed upon under this assignment, the Consultant 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 assignment, the Consultant 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 Consultant will promote gender equality and inclusion by mainstreaming gender and inclusion aspects in all activities undertaken under the present assignment, 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, youth and persons with disabilities in the activities.

Working Languages of the assignment

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

5.  Responsibilities of the ILO

• Help the consultant to liaise with project partners and stakeholders, including the identified women and youth in the focus areas.
• Provide necessary project documents
• Organize consultation workshops, technical training and  meetings to gather relevant information and share findings of the review

6. Specifications of the Consultant’s eligibility:

Participation in the Request for Quotation (RFQ) is open to individuals with the following competencies:

• Demonstrable  national experience in the Philippines in the field of skills development and TVET system, with focus on development of competency standards, qualifications, assessment, and curricula, and experience in implementing successfully development projects addressing the thematic areas included in the TORs
• With a minimum of 10 years of experience of  consultancies in the areas related to the assignment, and with the following minimum credentials:

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

7.  Deliverables, Contract duration and Payments schedule

The Deliverables are summarized in the Section 11 ‘Annex’ below.

The settlement for the assignment is payable in 3 (three) tranches within the established timeframe, in Philippine peso (Php) Currency, as per ILO rules and procedures for Service Contracts following submission, and acceptance by ILO, of all Deliverables related to each tranche, as follows:.

1. Tranche 1: Deliverables 1 and 2
2. Tranche 2: Deliverables 3 and 4
3. Tranche 3: Deliverables 5 and 6

The assignment is to be completed within 60 (sixty) workdays on an intermittent basis over a period from May 15, 2021 to November 15, 2021 with December 15 being the deadline for submission of all Deliverables.

The legal duration of the contract shall be set from May 15, to December 15, 2021 in order to accommodate for the related internal requirements of the ILO.

Subject to the deadline for submission of all Deliverables herein, the proposed dates of completion for each of the activities within the overall indicated timeframe for implementation shall be treated as indicative. The Consultant will have the flexibility to reasonably adjust them, in consultation with the Project Team, depending on the circumstances in the concerned Regions, as applicable.  All tasks and deliverables must be satisfactorily completed and accepted by the ILO in order to facilitate payment. All deliverables are subject to several rounds of revision by the ILO and SfP-PHI programme.

8.  Management arrangements

The Consultant will conducts its work under the guidance of the Chief Technical Adviser (CTA) of the Project and in close coordination with the designation Programme Officer(s) in the country.

9.  Travel Expenses

The proposed assignment shall be carried out by teleworking, home-based in the country of recruitment/engagement and will not cover any travel-related expenses. The Consultant 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.

10. Documents to be Submitted

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Proposal including an extended description of the way he/she would envisage implementing the proposed scope of work
• Estimated budget (financial proposal), i.e., professional fees (daily rate) and other expenses, for completing the work
• Sample work (reports of similar work done by the consultant)

The interested consultants are requested to submit the above documents electronically (in PDF format) to mnlsfpproject@ilo.org by April 20, 2021 by 4:00 P.M. GMT+8.

A prospective bidding candidate requiring any clarification of the TOR document may notify ILO on or before April 17, 2021 at 4:00 P.M. GMT+8, via email at the following address: mnlsfpproject@ilo.org. The ILO’s response will be made via email within three (3) business days only to the respective bidder 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 TOR is posted.

Short-listed bidders will be contacted for further review and negotiations, as may be necessary

11. Annex - the indicative List of Deliverables and related details (may be expanded by the bidder as deemed appropriate, and proposed as part of the bidding 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.

Please refer to the attached detailed TOR.