Zambia Inclusive Education ‘Tusambilile Chapamo’ (Let’s Learn Together) End-Term Evaluation At ightsavers

Anticipated timeframe: Circa 60 to 70 person days between August 2024 and March 2025

Location: Chinsali District and Lusaka, Zambia

The Government of Zambia is committed to ensuring that learners with special education needs and disabilities (LSEND) access inclusive education. The government has signed and ratified the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and also outlined a plan for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Post education, young people with disabilities, particularly young women, find it particularly difficult to access formal employment, demonstrating a disconnect between the legislative and policy framework and the systems for their implementation. Therefore, Sightsavers and the Zambian Federation of Disability Organisations (ZAFOD) developed the Tusambilile Chapamo project to empower children and youth with disabilities in Zambia by increasing access to quality, equitable and inclusive education/skills training. By raising the inclusiveness of education provision in the centres, the project aims to benefit all students, both those with disabilities and those without disabilities.

The overall objective of the project is to empower children and youth with disabilities in Zambia by increasing their access to quality, equitable and inclusive education in Chinsali zone, Muchinga Province, and ensuring LSEND have access to a continuum of education of improved quality.

A mid-term review (MTR) was completed in November 2023 for this inclusive education project in Zambia, conducted by the Sightsavers’ MEL Team with support from an independent Zambian consultant. The purpose of the MTR was to explore the challenges, successes and learning for the project so far, and to make recommendations for any necessary adjustments in the remaining duration.

Sightsavers is now commissioning a consultant/consultancy to conduct a final end of term evaluation that considers the whole intervention.

Purpose of Analysis

This ETE will assess the performance of the project and garner specific learnings that can be taken forward in future programme design and implementation. It will assess the effectiveness and replicability of the model of low-cost inclusive education piloted in this project and make recommendations pertaining to scalability and sustainability.

The findings, learnings and recommendations from the evaluation will be used by Sightsavers programme staff to inform the design and delivery of similar projects and programmes. This will include continuity work in Zambia (whether or not this is directly supported by Sightsavers), as well as inclusive education work in similar contexts. It is also intended that the evaluation will contribute evidence and/or insight towards some of Sightsavers’ thematic learning questions, as well as provide evidence to government that Inclusive Education is doable in Zambia, at a low cost.

The main users of this evaluation will be EU delegation in Zambia, Sightsavers, ZAFOD and government partners.

The evaluation criteria will cover:

• Relevance, is the intervention doing the right things
• Effectiveness, is it achieving the objectives
• Impact, what difference does the intervention bring
• Sustainability, will the benefits be ongoing
• Scalability, which aspects of the intervention are suitable to replicate or scale-up
• Equity and inclusion, how inclusive has the intervention been

1. Deliverables
2. A draft Inception Report in English
3. A final Inception Report in English (after at least one round of review/editing)
4. A draft Evaluation Report in English
5. A final Evaluation Report[1] in English (after at least two rounds of internal review/editing and an external review by the European Commission)[2]
6. Policy brief
7. Infographic to showcase the results of the evaluation and the recommendations.
8. Anonymised data sets (Excel or Word files) for all collected data (quantitative and qualitative)

Consultant’s expertise

• Extensive experience in monitoring and evaluation for international development project/programmes, with strong skills in both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
• Thematic expertise in inclusive education with comprehensive understanding of preferred practices/policy issues at national and global levels.
• Prior experience of Most Significant Change or Outcome Harvesting for programme evaluation purposes.
• Prior experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa is essential, including primary data collection, preferably in Zambia.
• Prior inclusive education work/evaluation experience, as well as knowledge and expertise of disability inclusion and gender mainstreaming.
• Experience of carrying out evaluation and learning exercises of an appropriate scale.
• Ability to source and manage additional support with relevant services such as data collection, translation, sign language interpretation, and transcription, in Zambia when necessary.
• Ability to produce clear, concise, and analytical reports in English, with excellent attention to detail, and to meet agreed deadlines.
• Experience of producing learning and summary documents to share findings and recommendations with diverse audiences in clear and engaging ways. Familiarity with accessible design principles would be advantageous.
• First class communication skills in written and spoken English. Fluency in local languages in Zambia (primarily Bemba) is highly desirable.
• The evaluation team will adhere to the contractual terms and conditions with Sightsavers, including clauses in relation to confidentiality, data protection and intellectual property rights. It is expected that the evaluation will fully follow ethical principles for evaluation, and that the team will adhere to Sightsavers’ guidelines on ethical considerations for evaluation, Safeguarding Policy, and Code of Conduct. It is also a requirement that all members of the evaluation team have completed a short online UNICEF ethics training course, or equivalent, before embarking on the evaluation.

Sightsavers welcomes expressions of interest from qualified independent evaluators or consultancy companies. An individual or team with members located in Zambia would be preferred.

Consultants with a proven track record in the above will be procured to undertake the project through an expression of interest process.

Value for money will be one of the proposal assessment criteria.

Payment Terms

To be agreed between Sightsavers and the consultant/consultancy at interview.

Full details of the project, Scope of Work, Outputs/ Deliverables and budget can be found within the attached ToR.