Background
From 2012 to 2018 DFID and USAID supported the CBE programme to deliver support to over 247,000 CBE learners through 5 cycles of nine months of local language literacy and numeracy courses in Ghana. Over 95% of learners are estimated to complete the cycle, and over 92% of these transitioned into formal schools. In 2017/18, the Government of Ghana also delivered CBE in 14 districts through Financial Aid (FA) from DFID, reaching 20,000 CBE learners.
Through the DFID Education Beyond Aid programme, the UK government aims to support the Ministry of Education and related agencies to effectively resource, manage and implement the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme to reach out-of-school girls and boys in Ghana. It proposes to increase the Ministry of Education’s self-reliance in managing the education sector and deliver quality services to Ghana’s children, including the most vulnerable. This includes providing match-funding to support 40,000 out-of-school children to complete CBE courses and transition to formal school from 2018-2020, as well as technical assistance and research to improve GoG implementation.
Montrose has been contracted to execute the three-year DFID funded Research to Support the Government of Ghana Implementation of Complementary Basic Education’ programme. More specifically, DFID aims seeking high-quality research to support the Government of Ghana (GoG) to understand teaching and learning within government-led CBE programmes, the longer-term impacts of CBE on graduate experiences once they are in formal schools, and the systems and relationships required for the government to effectively and efficiently lead implementation of CBE programmes for out-of-school children.
Therefore, this project will aim to:
Overview of Montrose’s Scope of Work for the Client
For the successful delivery of this assignment, Montrose brought together a team of core technical experts with experience in mixed methods research, monitoring, evaluation and learning activities, including on Complementary Basic Education (CBE) in Ghana; quantitative experts specialising in learning outcomes measurement, longitudinal studies and tracker studies; a Political Economy Analysis specialist with extensive DFID advisory research and policy support experience across multiple government departments; qualitative research and social inclusion experts; and experienced fieldwork managers of large scale data collection with marginalised children in multiple regions of Ghana. Montrose will also be working with the national University of Cape Coast and the northern Ghana based University of Development Studies. These partnerships are part of the strategy to maximise contextual input to the research design, utilise existing local research experts, and promote broader use of the evidence generated through extended university led research and dissemination.
Over the three-year period, the core outputs for this assignment shall include:
The inception report will include an updated research proposal, a risk register and management plan; an evaluation approach and methodology paper; a revise workplan; final Stakeholder mapping document and, a communication and Evidence Dissemination plan.
Political Economy Analysis (PEA) is both an approach and an output within the project design. An initial stakeholder matrix will be developed during inception and the ongoing PEA analysis will guide the project team’s engagement throughout the programme, taking an organisational development approach.
The Tracker Studies will largely follow the approach taken in the previous contract, with additional tools to provide evidence to support evaluation questions (EQs). There will be a thorough review of the data and tools available from the previous programme as part of the programme design. The EQs go beyond the focus of the previous programme, looking at learning which will best support the increased effectiveness of the GoG’s delivery