Tetra Tech International Development is looking for an Assessment Panel Member for the Laos Australia Institute: Australia Awards Scholarships Laos program. The Assessment Panel Member for Australia Awards Laos will help evaluate scholarship applicants and select the top 20-30% to move forward to the next stages, which include IELTS testing and interviews. They will assess applicants based on core selection principles and criteria, including Academic Competence, Leadership Attributes, and Potential Outcome.

Contribute to a world where people, communities, and the planet thrive.

Tetra Tech International Development is a leading development consulting firm working with government, businesses, and NGOs to solve complex development challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. For more information, please visit our website.

The opportunity:

• Remote (home based)
• Short term - up to 25 input days full time contracted daily from 06 May 2025 – 9 June 2025.

Laos Australia Institute: Australia Awards Laos is managed by Tetra Tech International Development on behalf of the Australian Government through the Laos Australia Institute.

Australia Awards Scholarships (AAS) are prestigious international awards offered by the Australian Government to the next generation of global leaders in developing countries. Through study and research, recipients develop the skills and knowledge to drive change and help build enduring people-to-people links with Australia.

Summary

Position: Disaster READY Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Coordinator for the Australian Humanitarian Partnership Support Unit (AHPSU). This is a fulltime role based in Australia. 

Period: 2 years. The Australian Humanitarian Partnership Phase II will be operational until 22 January 2027.

About Alinea International Ltd: Alinea is an international development consultancy providing technical and management expertise that helps people improve their lives. We work with governments, investors, companies and communities to create lasting change. Over 35 years, Alinea has successfully delivered more than 515 projects worldwide. 

Background

The Terms of Reference (ToR) outlines the roles and responsibilities for the AHPSU Disaster READY Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Coordinator. This role will be responsible for supporting monitoring, evaluation and learning for Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP) programming in the Pacific and Timor-Leste, primarily the long-term Disaster READY resilience program. The position is Australia based, ideally in Melbourne or Canberra, although other locations may also be considered. The role may also require some travel to Pacific Island Countries and Timor-Leste. 

The AHP: Represents a 10-year humanitarian and disaster management partnership between the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and six leading Australian humanitarian NGOs: the Church Agencies Network – Disaster Operations (CAN DO); CARE Australia; Oxfam Australia; Plan International Australia; Save the Children Australia; World Vision Australia.

AHP focuses on enabling rapid response to sudden onset disasters, providing assistance to protracted crises globally, and supporting disaster preparedness and resilience in the Pacific and Timor-Leste through the Disaster READY program. 

For more information: https://australianhumanitarianpartnership.org/

Disaster READY: Has been designed to support women, men, youth, children, people with disabilities and other vulnerable people to be better prepared and more resilient to disasters in selected Pacific countries and Timor-Leste. Now in its second 5-year phase, the program is being implemented by AHP partners and their local networks in Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste. AHP partners draw on networks and partnerships in the region to strengthen disaster preparedness and improve disaster management at community to government levels, focusing on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA).

For more information: https://australianhumanitarianpartnership.org/preparedness

The AHP Support Unit: AHPSU was established in 2018. It is funded by DFAT and managed by Alinea International. The AHPSU represents a compact, agile and responsive team. The team works closely with Australian NGOs, their local partnerships and networks, the DFAT Humanitarian Division, specifically the Humanitarian Preparedness and Response Branch, and other key humanitarian stakeholders. Core responsibilities of the AHPSU include facilitating partnership; supporting monitoring, evaluation and learning, promoting innovation and continuous improvement; communications and visibility; and providing grant support.

The AHPSU team: Is a compact unit that includes the Partnership Director, Operations & Grants Manager, MEL Manager, Disaster READY Coordinator, Communications & Visibility Manager and Senior Communications Specialist, and two Program Officers. 

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.

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

   

Role Summary

The Adviser is responsible for assisting the MAP Advisor – Performance, Quality and Risk, implement the MAP Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) system, and managing information flows to inform management of lessons learned from investment implementation. This includes working closely with delivery partners to ensure investment MEL systems are fit for purpose, contribute to MAP objectives, are in line with DFAT requirements, and supportive of the overall MAP Performance Assessment Framework (PAF). The Advisor will support DFAT Investment Managers prepare Investment Monitoring Reports (IMRs) for MAP regional programs managed from Bangkok, and assist Posts across the region to report bilateral activities, including through IMRs, within the MAP MEL framework as required.

The Adviser will be located in the Mekong Hub and report to the Advisor – Performance, Quality and Risk. The Advisor will work closely with sector specialists, Australian Government posts in the region, implementing partners, Australian Government agencies and DFAT Canberra.  The position will support coordination within and between Mekong countries and facilitate cross-fertilisation and learning between MAP investments.