Consultancy – Education Data and Statistics Consultant, Data & Analytics (D&A) Section, DAPM NYHQ (home based)

Consultancy Title:                        Education data and statistics consultant

Section/Division/Duty Station:   Data & Analytics Section (D&A)/DAPM/NYHQ-home based

Duration:                                      11.5 months

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

UNICEF launched the MICS-EAGLE (Education Analysis for Global Learning and Equity) Initiative in 2018 with the objective of addressing two critical issues with education data: (1) gaps in the availability of education indicators; (2) lack of effective data utilization by governments and education stakeholders.  

MICS-EAGLE is designed to build national capacity for education sector situation analysis and leverage the vast wealth of disaggregated education data collected by MICS6 (or future iterations). Furthermore, the initiative aims to build on the data provided by MICS6 to conduct disaggregated analysis that yields insights on how to remove barriers preventing children from achieving their full potential through education opportunities. 

The MICS-EAGLE Initiative offers activities at the national, regional and global levels. National level activities seek to identify specific education issues using MICS data linking to policy discussions, and key education data gaps that require additional studies or data sources. Global and regional level activities are geared toward capacity building by enhancing knowledge regarding the use of household data analysis to inform education sector policy discussions.

The purpose of the consultancy is to provide technical support and expertise to the MICS-EAGLE Initiative, including activities such as data analyses, organization of workshops, capacity building exercises, technical reviews and drafting of reports and factsheets.

Terms of Reference / Deliverables

The incumbent is responsible for the following:

Data analysis, report writing, and direct support to country offices for MICS-EAGLE

• Coordinate with country offices and regional offices for the organization of direct online / virtual support to country offices in the implementation of the MICS-EAGLE initiative.
• Develop factsheets for countries participating in the MICS-EAGLE initiative: data analysis, drafting, coordinating with editors and designers, as well as country offices.
• Carry out cross-country data analysis of MICS6 data and draft MICS-EAGLE factsheets.
• Provide data analyses to MICS-EAGLE global, regional and thematic reports.
• Provide support to the annual virtual MICS-EAGLE Global workshop with representatives of over 10 countries.

Capacity building for MICS-EAGLE

• Develop materials and tools for on-line MICS-EAGLE training both in English and French.
• Support the Country Office Education Specialist for organizing and implementing virtual capacity development workshops regarding the household data analysis for education planning.
• Support the Country Office Education Specialist to expand partnership for education data analysis capacity development.

Research and methodological development 

• Coordinate with County Offices, Regional Offices and the MICS team to launch the pilot of MICS-Link project aiming to connect MICS data with EMIS data.
• Participate in virtual cooperation meetings with other major agencies to enrich the debate on calculation and monitoring of education indicators (e.g. UNICEF, UNESCO, World Bank and Global Education Monitoring Report).
• Present research developments from the team in (online) conferences and (online) workshops.
• Actively engage in the research for new blog posts, research briefs and academic papers for scientific journals.

Responding to ad-hoc requests

• Conduct any other analysis and provide any other support to the Data & Analytics Section, depending on the organizational need such as analyzing data for blog posts and data check for blogs/papers/documents drafted by internal and external partners.

Qualifications

1) Education 

• Advanced university degree (Masters or equivalent) in Education, Economics, Statistics, or another relevant field.   
• Expertise in analyzing education data, particularly from household surveys including MICS.  
• The individual should be highly proficient in a statistical package (STATA, SPSS or R) and data visualization program (e.g. Tableau, R), as well as in MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and MS Outlook.  

2) Work experience 

• A minimum of six years of progressively responsible experience in data processing, management and analysis and research, particularly in the education sector. Experience in developing an index. 
• Proven experience on drafting reports in the field of education, training or skills development. 
• Previous experience in promoting capacity building exercises, or teaching at primary, secondary or tertiary level, is extremely valuable.  
• Previous experience working with, or in, developing countries, is desirable.  
• It is preferable that the individual has experience with, or in, multilateral institutions. 

3) Competencies  

• Expertise in treatment of education data, indicator calculation and presentation of results.  
• Excellent organizational skills and an ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks. 
• Ability to work under pressure, manage heavy workloads and meet tight deadlines, paying close attention to details and quality of work. 
• Excellent written and interpersonal communication skills in English and French, and a working knowledge of Spanish, Arabic, or Russian would be an asset. 

Requirements

• Completed profile in UNICEF’s e-Recruitment system and provide Personal History Form (P11) Upload copy of academic credentials.
• Financial proposal that will include:
  • your daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference (can be downloaded here: https://www.unicef.org/about/employ/index_consultancy_assignments.html 
  • Indicate your availability
• Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.
• At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
• Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.