Communications Training Consultancy (Photography, Storytelling, Social media)

The GREAT Program, a 10-year flagship initiative of Australian Government, managed by Cowater International, is looking for a service provider (an individual consultant or a consultancy firm) who can provide high quality training in areas of communications and promotion for our partners in provinces of Lao Cai and Son La. 

Education Pathways for Peace in Mindanao Program will conduct a three-year research study to determine the impact of the program’s interventions on targeted schools (kinder to grade 3 only) in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). The research will be designed as a small n study testing the theory of change for each of four types of school: community schools (known as Learning Centres), catchment schools connected to the Learning Centres (known as Associated Catchment Schools), targeted madrasah schools, and the model inclusive schools (known as Inclusive and Supportive Centres of Learning). 

This theory-based evaluation approach will be used to identify what worked by looking into the changes brought about by Pathways-supported intervention and, importantly, to understand why and how the interventions worked. The research will start in 2024 and be repeated in 2025 and 2026. The study will provide baseline data in 2024 and, where possible, estimate retrospective baselines as of September 2022 when schools reopened after the COVID-19 Pandemic. Data collection will estimate where Pathways is contributing to better learning outcomes, classroom teaching and learning practices, learning and development for teachers, support to schools by divisional offices, school-based management practices, and inclusion practices including equity outcomes for key variables.

The study aims to:

• Identify to what extent Pathways’ interventions are reaching and creating change at the school and classroom level, and impacting children’s literacy and numeracy

• Identify adaptations and modifications that are both positively and negatively influencing the outcomes

• Understand results for different variables across the type of schools

• How contextual factors are influencing the outcomes expected at the school-level

• Identify the enablers, barriers, and challenges influencing school-level outcomes

• Identify good practices and effective strategies within each school type

• Provide learning and recommendations as to how policy and implementation can be improved during the remainder of the program, as MBHTE and the Philippines Department of Education take policy interventions forward, and to inform Australia’s ongoing education sector work.

• The program’s overall target beneficiaries for each school type are 210 Learning Centres, 123 Associate Catchment Schools, 25 Madrasah, and one Inclusive and Supportive Centre for Learning (ISCL). Pathways support to each school type has included^[1]:

  Learning Centres

  Pathways' assistance to the MBHTE Abot Kaalaman sa Pamilyang Pilipino (AKAP) Program aims to offer quality early years' education to learners in barangays without schools. This involves establishing functional learning centres (LCs) or providing flexible learning options in validated school-less barangays. By the end of the 2023-2024 school year, AKAP provided kindergarten to grade 3 education to 123 geographically isolated, disadvantaged, and conflict-affected communities in BARMM by introducing grade 3 classes.

  Pathways' support to AKAP focuses on enrolling out-of-school children, enhancing social inclusion and strengthening stakeholder engagement at various governance levels and with the school. This involves enhancing stakeholder engagement in learning centres, community structures, school division offices, local government units, and the regional AKAP Technical Working Group.

  Associated Catchment Schools

  An Associated Catchment School is a catchment school assigned to manage an AKAP Learning Centre established under the Pathways Program. Pathways has progressively lifted the Catchment Schools linked to AKAP Learning Centres to ensure they provide support and management to the Centres for them to succeed. The focus is for the Associated Catchment Schools to develop specific support and management skills. The program’s support to the Associated Catchment Schools includes providing trainings to K-3 teachers and Catchment School Heads, designing and planning K-3 teaching and learning materials, developing K-3 learning assessment tools and manual, and production of teaching learning readers in Filipino and mother-tongue languages, among others.

  Madrasah

  Pathways support to madrasah is at both the system level to help establish system arrangements that will improve both formal and non-formal madrasah and improve delivery by the targeted madrasah. At the system level, Pathways support has included the development of the Bangsamoro Education Code, Madrasah Education Strategic Plan, Madrasah Comprehensive Plan, and the Madrasah Establishment System. The 25 targeted madrasah is a group of `formal’ madrasah that were established before 2017 that are still operating and are considered `stable’ and development ready. All 25 madrasah are private entities and `formal madrasah’ are recognised under the Bangsamoro Education Code as delivering the governments’ curriculum and are subject to government quality assurance processes. Pathways’ support ranges from development of curriculum and learning materials, teacher and school leader training, and introducing school-base management. Madrasah are recognised as historically under resourced and therefore less developed institutions whereby responding to Pathways’ supported interventions will take longer.

  Inclusive and Supportive Centres of Learning

  The ISCL refers to a primary school that is being transformed into a model inclusion institution of learning with an ecology that adapts to the needs of children. The model school supports a network of other public schools, known as Satellite Public Schools, which are coached by the ISCL and MBHTE (regional and divisions) to progressively implement the Inclusive Schools Approach. Pathways started supporting the development of the model inclusive school in 2022. To date, Pathways has supported ISCL with the development of the Inclusive Schools Approach Omnibus Policy, ISA-ISCL Five Essentials, and training of teachers and school leaders in inclusion and Play-based Approach.

  
  _________________________________

  [1] Pathways will provide a table to the successful candidate identifying the scope, timing, and nature of interventions rolled out to-date.

   

An excellent opportunity for a motivated Finance and Administration Manager to contribute to Cambodia’s development through the support of the Australia Awards Cambodia (AAC) project.

About the Program 

Investing in Women: Women in Inclusive Sustainable Economic Recovery (IW) is a multi-country Australian Government initiative in Southeast Asia that seeks to accelerate women’s economic empowerment through increased and equitable opportunities in the private sector, contributing to inclusive, sustainable economic recovery and growth in targeted countries. Our objective is to support women to thrive in the workplace and succeed in business.

IW continues the ambitious agenda of advancing women’s economic empowerment through:

• Workplace Gender Equality (Workstream 1) – We support Business Coalitions that work with influential businesses on shifting workplace cultures, practices, and policy barriers to achieve workplace gender equality, with member companies together employing more than one million people;

• Enabling Policy Reforms (Workstream 2) – We support locally identified reform agendas that promote women’s workforce participation, generate support for the business case for WGE, and build the case for the value and importance of the care economy to business, the economy and women’s economic empowerment;

• Campaigns and Communities of Practice (Workstream 3) – We support locally driven campaigns in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam that highlight positive examples of gender equality to strengthen public support for women’s economic participation. Through fostering a community of gender equality advocates, IW will continuously build evidence that supports the broader adoption of progressive attitudes and behaviours; and

• Gender Lens Investing (Workstream 4) – We work to increase investment in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that disproportionately benefit women in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. We do so by increasing capital providers’ demand for Gender Lens Investing strategies and products, catalysing the supply of financial instruments available to small businesses owned or led by women, and investing in the growth of SMEs that support women through a ‘fund of funds’ strategy.

In collaboration with corporations and business leaders, policymakers and implementers, capital providers, entrepreneurs, and advocates, we are working with those who are driving change for women's economic equality in our region. More information about Investing in Women can be found on the website: www.investinginwomen.asia

Cowater International is recruiting a short-term, part-time institutional development consultant to support the CAPRED program in Cambodia