Request for Proposal – Disability Tracking Tool (DTT) Digitalisation At Right To Play

Enhancing Quality and Inclusive Education (EQIE)
Disability Tracking Tool (DTT) Digitalisation
Request for Proposals

1. Right To Play International
Right To Play is a global organization committed to improving the lives of children and youth affected by conflict, disease and poverty. Established in 2000, Right To Play has pioneered a unique play-based approach to learning and development which focuses on quality education, life skills, health, gender equality, inclusion, child protection and building peaceful communities. With programming in 15 countries, Right To Play transforms the lives of more than 2,3 million children each year, both inside and outside of the classroom. In addition to our work with children, Right To Play advocates with parents, local communities, civil society organization (CSO) partners and governments to advance the fundamental rights of all children.

Right To Play is headquartered in Toronto, Canada as well as London, UK, and has operations in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Our programs are facilitated by more than 600 international staff and 31,900 local teachers and coaches. For more information, follow @RightToPlayIntl and visit www.righttoplay.com.

2. Program Overview

Enhancing Quality and Inclusive Education (EQIE) is a five-year education program currently being implemented by Right To Play in five countries that aims to improve learning outcomes of boys and girls – specifically minimum proficiency levels in reading in lower primary Grades 1-4 – and to increase retention of out-of-school girls and children with disabilities.

These goals will be achieved by building the capacity of education staff, teachers and parents to give children better and more opportunities to practice reading skills (both inside and outside school) using child-centred, play-based and active learning methodologies. Right To Play will also build the capacity of CSO partners to identify out-of-school girls and children with disabilities and to develop follow-up and support systems, together with schools and local communities, which ensure access and sustained retention in school. Through these interventions, the program will contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 4, ensuring “inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all”, including its underlying principle of “leave no one behind”.

Countries of Implementation: Ethiopia, Lebanon, Mozambique, Palestine, and Tanzania
Target Beneficiaries: Total Number of Schools: 165; Total Number of Children: 114,165 (boys: 53,082;
girls: 61,083)

Project Timeline: January 1, 2020-December 31, 2024

Consultancy Timeline: March 25, 2022 – May 20, 2022

3. Purpose of Consultancy
The objective of this consultancy is to review and digitalise the EQIE project’s disability tracking tool into a user-friendly online tool to be use on android-based phones or tablets. The consultant is also expected to train selected CSO/DPO and RTP staff on how to use the digitalised tool for the identification, prioritisation, enrolment/referral and progress monitoring of retention and learning outcomes of out-of-school children with disabilities re-enrolled in school across the 5 project countries.

Disability Tracking Tool (DTT) is a hybrid between a data collection tool and a case handling mechanism that identifies and follows the journey of out-of-school children with disabilities (CwDs) as they enrol back into school. It captures all cases a School Inclusion Committee (SIC) is working on across three distinct phases (Identification; Pre-Enrolment; Monitoring) and includes a quarterly SIC action plan update section, scoring each case for prioritisation and identifying next steps to ensure quality programming and safeguarding.

It is required that the digitalised tool should have the capability of generating real-time visualised summary reports for users at the different stage of the tracking journey of a child. Users should be able to generate summarised and visualised reports at the end of;

• Identification and prioritisation stage
• Matching and pre-enrolment/referral stage
• Monitoring/Case Handling stage

Finally, it is required that the Case Handling aspect of the tool should have some colour-coded prompts
to help alert users to follow up on cases easily and promptly.

The ultimate purpose of this consultancy is to equip RTP and CSO/DPO staff with relevant skills and easy-to-use digitalise tool for tracking the success of inclusive education intervention where children with disability (both in and out-of-school) are properly identified, enrolled, and supported to succeed in their education journey. The DTT tool and its database must comply with privacy and data security regulations of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), PIPEDA (The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act of Canada), and general digital data security principles.

Ideally, the DTT in its final form will be accessible and user friendly enough that personnel from Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs), staff at other partners organisations and RTP staff with disabilities can use the tool as they interface with children with disabilities, enabling disabled people to take the lead in increasing their own visibility and equal participation in society more broadly.

4. Scope of Work The consultant will be required to accomplish the underlisted tasks:

1. Conduct qualitative appraisal/feedback calls with RTP staff and CSOs who are already using the excel based version of the disability tracking tool (DTT, herein refer to as the ‘tool’).
2. Review and refine the existing excel-based ‘tool’, proposing adjustments that will strengthen the content and internal consistency of the tool.
3. Create prototype digitalised data (both quantitative and qualitative) entering, analysis and reporting versions of the tool for each of the three key stages of the tracking process in SurveyCTO or any other secure platform agreed to by both parties.
4. Train RTP staff and pilot-test the prototype versions with 2 EQIE project offices (i.e., Mozambique and Palestine)
5. Refine prototype versions based on feedback from pilot, and upload final versions of the digitalised tools on the selected/approved online platform
6. Develop comprehensive user manual, and asynchronous training video on what the tool is for, how to use it – both practically and how to connect the information it gathers with programming (referrals, enrolments, school infrastructure adaptations, synergy with monitoring systems etc.), and how to ensure children’s data is kept confidential amongst only those who Need to Know
7. Train EQIE Project team and selected community volunteers
8. Provide troubleshooting and user support services for 2-3months after full roll-out of the tool to help deal with any potential glitches teams may face before fully handling over to RTP.
   5. Methodology
   The first part of the consultancy will involve a review of Right To Play’s existing excel-based disability
   tracking tool; and the disability inclusion and education technical guidance note; desk research other
   disability tracking tools used, and ways other organisations (INGOs & UN agencies) have approached this
   issue; and engagement with the Global Program Development team in order to produce a revised version
   of the DTT that fills identified gaps.

The next stage will involve selection and testing of the online platform or software on which the revised DTT will be digitalised and hosted. The consultant will be expected to provide detailed documentation and demo session for RTP’s global team on the proposed online platform/software. Decision on final selection of the platform will based on the platform’s capabilities of meeting needs described under section 3 above, affordability, data security capabilities, and easy of technology transfer to CSO/DPOs by end of project period.

Prototyping, field-testing, and finalisation of the 3 distinct phases of DTT on the selected online platform will form the next aspect of the consultancy. While the final stage will be development of user manual, asynchronous training video, 3-5 days of virtual training of CSO/DPO and EQIE Project team staff.

At all stages in-depth engagement with relevant teams at Right To Play will be required to produce a resource that enables the program to strengthen its approach to inclusive education.

6. General Conditions of the Consultancy
Steering Committee
A steering committee of key implementation stakeholders (i.e. Right To Play country and global staff) will be formed to guide and inform the tool revision and digitalisation process. They will help to inform the relevance and appropriateness of the content, user-friendliness and data management capabilities of the platform. They will also help to ensure that the process is sound, culturally appropriate and contextually relevant to Right To Play’s programmatic needs and to the needs of all relevant stakeholders (i.e. CSO/DPOs, SIC, children).

Consultancy Expectations

• The consultant will have a comprehensive orientation to Right To Play’s EQIE program.
• The consultant will submit an inception report including a detailed work plan and time frame for the completion of the assignment.
• The review of existing resources and proposed adjustments will be shared with Right To Play in the form of a revised DTT and summarised narrative report, with sufficient time to allow for Right To Play to review and provide feedback, which will be incorporated into finalising the tablet-based version of the DTT with detailed how-to-use guide.
• Throughout each phase, the consultant will be expected to maintain regular communications with Right To Play global and country staff regarding progress and provide presentations at different stages of the consultancy period.
• All materials, processes, methodologies, reports, plans and other works provided to the consultant or developed by the consultant on behalf of Right To Play remain the property of Right To Play.
• All documents must be stored in a safe and secure location, allowing full access to Right To Play staff during the development process.
• Upon completion of the resource, all raw documents must be submitted to Right To Play.

7. Roles and Responsibilities
The consultant will report directly to Thomas Breistein, Programme Development Manager at Right To Play Norway with copy to technical leads Eric Opoku, Senior MEL Manager, and Loulou Shah, Education Specialist at Right To Play International, and all deliverables should be submitted to them according to the schedule outlined in the “Key Deliverables and Timeline” section below.

The consultant’s roles and responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Background research to familiarize themselves with the EQIE program and Right To Play’s approach (i.e., program documents provided by Right To Play).
• Completion of all tasks specified under the scope of work section (Section 4).
• Maintain regular communications with the Steering Committee regarding progress and provide presentations at different stages of the consultancy period.
• All documents are stored in a safe and secure location, allowing full access to Right To Play staff during the development process.

8. Key Deliverables and Timeline

1. Submission of Proposal – March 18, 2022
2. Award of Contract – TBD (estimated March 25, 2022)
3. Kick-off meeting with Project Steering Committee – March 25, 2022
4. Consultant submits detailed inception report including workplan and documentation on intended online platform – March 31, 2022.
5. Review and refine the existing excel-based disability tracking tool
6. Complete qualitative appraisal/feedback calls with RTP staff and CSOs who are already using the tool – April 5, 20,22
7. Submission of findings and proposed adjustments – April 08, 2022.
8. Right To Play staff review and comment on findings and proposed adjustments.
9. Call with Right To Play International Steering Committee – April 14, 2022.
10. Selection and testing of the online platform or software on which the revised DTT will be digitalised
    and hosted
11. Submit created prototype digitalised DTT – April 28, 2022
12. Call with Steering Committee for demo session on proposed platform – April 28, 2022
13. RTP sends feedback and final decision on platform – May 05, 2022
14. Full development, field-testing and finalisation of the 3 distinct phases of DTT.
15. Field-test/pilot test prototype versions with 2 EQIE project offices – May 19, 2022
16. Submit comprehensive user manual including data security practices, and asynchronous training video on how to use the tool – May 31, 2022
17. Finalise digitalised DTT using feedback from the field-testing and any final comments from Steering Committee – May 31, 2022
18. Build the capacity of selected CSO/DPO and RTP staff to use the digitalised DTT and platform
19. Conduct 3 days of virtual training for CSO/DPO and EQIE Project team staff – June 7, 2022
20. Provide troubleshooting and user support services for 1 month – June 7 – July 7, 2022
21. Handover – final product.
22. Handover all final products to RTP Steering Committee– July 07, 2022.
23. Close-out meeting with Steering Committee –July 07, 2022

The above timeline is negotiable and subject to change based on consultation with Right To Play.

9. Proposed Budget and Payment Schedule
Consultant is asked to provide a draft budget proposal along with his/her technical proposal for
consideration. Right To Play offers competitive consultancy rates in keeping with market value and
international NGO standards.

• First payment: After signing of contract agreement with Right To Play (15%)
• Second payment: Submission of findings and proposed adjustments to existing tool (10%)
• Third payment: Submission prototype digitalised DTT (30%)
• Fourth payment: Submission of final digitalised DTT (25%)
• Final payment: Submission of final products (training manuals & videos, training, final fine-tuned software and hardware component of digitalised DTT system) approved by Right To Play (20%)

10. Qualifications

• A consultant with at least 7-15 years of experience in Inclusive Education, either as practitioner, researcher or trainer.
• Extensive experience creating digitalised tools and packages for CSO/DPOs and NGO staff, preferably on disability, inclusion and Inclusive Education.
• Excellent proficiency in design and use of digital data management platforms.
• Excellent knowledge of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), PIPEDA (The Personal
• Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act of Canada), and general digital data security principles.
• Cultural sensitivity and demonstrated ability to apply culturally appropriate approaches to communicate and interact with the Right To Play team, partners, and stakeholders, plus a tangible commitment to gender and disability equality, and to the Social Model of Disability.
• Familiarity with international standards, guidelines, policies and conventions around disability and/or education.
• Extensive experience in literacy, life skills/social emotional learning measurement, including experience in measuring children with disabilities learning outcomes, and knowledge of/familiarity using the Individualised Education Plan (IEP) model for measuring progress for children with disabilities.
• Ability to abide by Right To Play’s child protection and child safeguarding policies.
• Applicant should have a relevant degree in social sciences/education, international development, statistical sciences, or information systems.
• Excellent working proficiency in English.