Request for Proposal for Pre-Primary and Primary Learning Assessment in Sierra Leone.

1. Can you please confirm the linkage this assignment has with the Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) early childhood education programme in Sierra Leone. The P0 learning assessment will be administered at selected ECE centres (sample-based) which could include centres that will be intervened by EOF. However, ECE centres would not likely to be constructed by grantees of EOF by the time assessment is conducted. 2. Can you please confirm whether anyone involved in the implementation or the independent verification of the EOF programme are conflicted in this bidding process. This assignment of administration of learning assessment is national-scale (sample-based assessment that will represent national picture), while EOF’s programme is only for selected centers. There is a possibility of schools where learning assessment will be implemented can overlap with EOF-intervened schools, but even the schools are overlapping , it will not be an issue of conflict of interests for UNICEF 3. Does UNICEF have an existing tool for school readiness that they would prefer to be used or are they are aware of an industry standard toolkit used in SL already that would be ideal to be adopted for consistency - such as IDELA? The assessment tools for P-0 will be developed based on national learning/development standards, existing regional and global tools that could include IDELA, TEACH etc, however the tools will be developed through co-creating process with government 4. Do UNICEF see the assessment of foundational learning as building on the previous national baseline EGMA and EGRA and if so, would they find it beneficial for their assessment tool to be aligned so comparisons may be drawn? The foundational learning assessment (P-2) for this assignment will be used to collect base/endline data for the foundational learning training to be implemented by GoSL. EGMA and EGRA will be used as a reference document for sure, but the assessment to be developed under this assignment may not be built on them as EGMA and EGRA did not give benchmark of minimum level of proficiency linking to curriculum/foundational learning training which is on-going.

On page 2 of the TOR, it says one objective of the assignment is to, "Recruit and train administrators/assessors on administration guideline that includes selection criteria of students to be sampled, how to administer the assessment as well as how to fill in and submit the assessment record forms." Elsewhere in the TOR, it sounds as if government personnel will be administering the assessment. Should the bidder include a budget and plan to provide administrators/assessors? Or will government personnel be fulfilling this role? Feedback The bidder should include a budget and plan to provide administrators/assessors. The sample size of students whom learning assessment is administered will be big (assume 5,000 or something as the sample should be representative to national students population and we plan to disaggregate the data by sex and districts), so we do not have enough government officials to administer the tests to entire sample of students. The bidder should train government officials (TWG) for administration protocol, and then bidders together with TWG will train assessors for administration of assessment. TWG members’ roles will be supervisory during the assessment conducted by trained administrators/assessors.