Technical Consultancy on Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) Competency Standards Development for Skills for Prosperity (SfP) Project - Philippines

Location: Home-based

Implementation Period: 90 (ninety) workdays on an intermittent basis over the period of 6 (six) months, from May 1, 2021 to October 30, 2021 with October 30, 2021 being the deadline for submission of all Deliverables.

Contract Duration: The legal duration of the contract shall be set from May 1, to November 30, 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 require 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 SfP-PHI Project - Output 2.1 - TOR - Service Contract- Technical Consultancy - 20210304a.docx Page 2 of 9 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 qualifications, and related processes.

2. Objectives of this assignment

The overall objectives of the assignment are:

i) to review methodologies and propose recommendations for developing competency standards in the Philippines
ii) to review approaches and propose recommendations on the procedures for packaging of units of standards into qualifications, making estimates of the normative time allocation to units of standard and for assigning qualification levels on the basis of the Philippine Qualifications Framework (PQF)
iii) to review methodologies and propose recommendations for developing competency-based curricula.

Specific objectives of the assignment are:

1. to provide a comparative analysis of international practices (covering a minimum of 3 countries including the UK) of competency standards and qualifications development on the basis of experience of selected economic sectors such as agriculture with the focus on food production, construction sector with the focus on green building skills and qualifications and information technology and business
process management (IT-BPM) sector with the focus on skills for the digital economy; and to describe how these practices have been implemented in these economic sectors.

2. to 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 three economic 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. To prepare a stock-taking report integrating the international and national practices, including the findings and recommendations for improving the methodologies for competency standards development, packaging of units of standards into qualifications, and development of competency based curricula.

3. Scope of Work

The Contractor is expected to undertake the tasks as indicated in Section 11. ‘Annex’ under each of the Deliverables therein.

4. Responsibilities of the Contractor

To carry out the objectives of the assignment, the Contractor 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. Ensure that gender and social inclusion objectives of the project are mainstreamed in the whole exercise, to include but not limited to convening separate meeting with the women and marginalized sectors to be convened from the meeting with industry actors, national and sub-national agencies including local government units, and TVIs.
• provide technical guidance to the national expert(s) to be engaged by the project
• produce the reports as indicated in Section 11. ‘Annex’ under each of the Deliverables therein, including a final stock-taking report, in order to ensure that all essential areas are addressed and all available information (international and national) are identified and collected.
• conduct a series of consultation workshops, and technical training-workshops on packaging of qualifications and on credentialing as indicated in Section 11 ‘Annex’, and to ensure the full and meaningful participation of the women, youth and other marginalized sectors, and that the approaches to the consultations to be used are in consideration of their actual realities.
• share findings and recommendations and incorporate feedback of project team including comments of project partners and stakeholders to finalize the reports on the specific thematic areas, including 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 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 TOR.

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

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 partners and 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, but not limited to, by using gender and inclusion -disaggregated data for research, training and knowledge-sharing activities, and ensuring at least proportional participation of women, youth and other marginalized sector 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.

5. Responsibilities of the ILO

- Help the contractor to liaison with project partners and stakeholders, including the identified women, youth, and other marginalized sectors in the focus areas.
- Provide necessary project documents.
- Organize consultation workshops, technical training-workshops and meetings to gather relevant information and share findings of the review.

6. Specifications of the Contractor’s eligibility:

Participation in the Request for Quotations (RFQ) is open to the legally recognized for-profit entities with the following qualifications:

• Demonstrable international experience 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
• Involvement of key consultants with a minimum of ten (10 ) years of experience of international consultancies in the areas related to the tasks to be implemented under the assignment, 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 TOR
- excellent command of English

7. Deliverables, Contract duration and Payments schedule

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

The settlement for the assignment is payable in 3 (three) tranches within the established timeframe, in USDollars (US$) 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, 2 and 3
2. Tranche 2: Deliverables 4, 5 and 6
3. Tranche 3: Deliverables 7, 8 and 9

The assignment is to be completed within 90 (ninety) workdays on an intermittent basis over a period of 6 (six) months from May 1, to October 30, 2021 with October 30 being the deadline for submission of all Deliverables.

The legal duration of the Service Contract shall be set from May 1, 2021 to November 30, 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 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. 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 Project.

8. Management arrangements

The Contractor will conduct 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 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.

10. Documents to be Submitted

Participation in the RFQ is open to the legally recognized for-profit entities. Interested organizations must submit Proposals for the provision of services described in details on Section 11. “Annex” on or before 12:00noon Manila time zone on April 14, 2021. The proposal must be submitted via email to the SfP-PHI Project’s address: mnlsfpproject@ilo.org, and the Financial Proposal must be submitted as passwordlocked/protected files via email to the following address manila@ilo.org. Proposals and modifications to Proposals received after the proposal receipt deadline, or submitted with unlocked/unprotected by passwords Financial Proposals, or proposals submitted by any other means will be rejected. Proposals must include at least the following documents (in PDF format):

• copies of documents confirming the legal status of the bidder
• documentary evidence of eligibility of the bidder in line with above requirements
• a proposal including an extended description of the way the team would envisage implementing the proposed scope work
• 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 11. “Annex” of the present TOR, or as a separate spreadsheet document reflecting the same format. All prices shall be quoted in USD (United States Dollars)

A prospective bidding organization requiring any clarification of the TOR document may notify ILO on or before 12:00 noon Manila time zone on April 10, 2021, 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 selection 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.

Note:

1. Please refer to the attached detailed Terms of Reference (TOR)

2. Attached the updated ILO Terms and Conditions Applicable to ILO Contracts - 2021 version 2.0