Terms of Reference (ToR)
for
Data Collection and Analysis of a School-based Survey

Under USAID Tasking Request No. S019
Situational Analysis on Children with Disabilities in Bangladesh

Introduction

ME&A is a US based company working in Bangladesh since February 2018 for implementing USAID Bangladesh Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (BMEL) Activity. Under BMEL, ME&A has been implementing various tasking requests of USAID related to assessment, studies, analysis, project evaluation, third-party monitoring, etc. Recently, ME&A has received a tasking request for situational analysis of the children with disabilities in Bangladesh. The situational analysis will be conducted via mixed method with combination of a quantitative household survey and a qualitative school-based survey. ME&A is seeking to hire a Consulting Firm to carry out the qualitative school-based survey to respond the needs of information specified in the objectives of the survey.

Background and Rationale

Bangladesh is still struggling for authentic data on children with disabilities. Although, there were several surveys and studies taken place over the last couple of years, most of these sources are inadequate, inconsistent, and often underestimated because of varying definitions of disabilities and the research methodologies. The disability prevalence study published by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in 2015 estimated 1.4 percent of the total population in the country with disabilities, where school aged children with disabilities was about 1.0 percent. The Annual Primary School Census 2019 shows that the number of children and youth with disabilities enrolled in government primary schools has grown faster in recent years for all types of schools, particularly for children with physical handicaps and visual impairment. It records a striking 50% increase in the number of children and youth with disabilities in schools between 2005 and 2011. The number, however, enrolled in government primary schools has been declining since 2012. The reason for this decrease is unknown, which needs to be identified for taking necessary measures for improvement.  

Objectives of the qualitative school-based survey

The objective of the qualitative school-based survey is to gather comprehensive data on the situation of school readiness to provide children ages 4 to 14 with disabilities inclusive education services, the factors the enable or hinder parents from sending their CWD to school, and the community perception of the education issues facing CWD. The survey will seek the following data from the schools:

• Key informant interviews with the head teacher, and a member of the management committees, parent-teacher association, and community leader on issues related school preparedness to support CWD; support for CWD from the ministry of education; and gaps in the support CWD receive at the school
• Group discussions with teachers and parents to understand Why are the children with disabilities attend or do not attend schools? What are the enabling and hindering factors?
• Group discussions with teachers and parents to understand how the children with disabilities are performing in schools? If they are performing well, how? If they are not performing well, why are they not performing?
• Group discussion with teachers and parents to understand what are the perceptions/attitudes/beliefs, etc. of parents and family members toward primary school aged CWDs?
• Observation of school facility to assess CWD access to the classroom, eating area, toilet and wash areas.

The selected consulting firm will conduct this survey with a pre-defined semi-structured questionnaire developed, pre-tested and finalized by the study team of the ME&A. The data will be collected from 88 schools.
As stated above, the sample of the qualitative study will be determined purposively. The main consideration of the purposive selection is a type of schools (Schools: Government Primary School (GPS), Newly Nationalized Government Primary School (NNGPS) and Special Schools (Primary))followed by location (rural/urban), ethnicity, and geographical variations (Haor, baor, coastal, hill, plain land, etc.). The selection process generates the following samples for this study:

Table 1: Distribution of samples by location and geographic clusters 

Table 2: Distribution of samples by administrative units of the country and geographic clusters

Interviews: At each school visited the school-based team will conduct up to 30 minute interviews the Head Teacher, and a member of the management committees, parent-teacher association, and community leader on issues related school preparedness to support CWD; support for CWD from the ministry of education; and gaps in the support CWD receive at the school.

Group Discussions: One group discussion with teachers will be held at each school visited. The group discussion will focus on the issues faced by CWD in their school and by the teachers with CWD in their school and classroom. One group discussion will be held per school with parents with CWD age 4 to 14  in-school and out-of-school in the community served by the school participating in the survey. The group discussion will focus on questions related to the enabling factors and hindering factors to sending their children to school. One group discussion with community members within the school area will held per school to obtain information on community member perceptions of CWD education issues.

The team will organize separate group discussion with representatives of parent with CWD ages 4 to 14 who are in-school and out-of-school, of ethnic/indigenous groups and with women and men, if appropriate and possible. Each group discussion will include 3 to 4 participants and will follow best-practice protocols, including assignment of a moderator and a note-taker. Moderators will use a semi-structured questionnaire that will be approved by USAID in advance as part of the work plan. The teacher group discussion will take up to 40 minutes; parents with CWD up to 30 minutes; and community members up to 20 minutes.

Direct observation: Each school physical preparedness to provide CWD inclusive education services will be observed including by not limited to: CWD access to the classroom, lunch area, toilet and water facilities.

Scope of work

Develop online application for data collection

The consulting firm will collect the data collection tools and guidelines from the study team and develop online applications of these tools that allow enumerators to collect data through mobile phones or tablets. The consulting firm must field test the application with at least 5 schools of the in the non-sample areas. The consulting firm will be responsible to hire server space to store the data with high end access control.  They will also be responsible for providing mobile phones or tablets to the enumerators for data collection.   

Hiring and Training of Enumerators

The consulting firm will hire qualified 40 enumerators and 8 supervisors for this survey who will form eight groups and be deployed in four (4) divisions for collect data. The consulting firm will organize a three-days training for the enumerators and supervisors including a day for field practice. The major content of the training should include approach, tools, and plans of data collection. The study team will facilitate most of the sessions of this training. The consulting firm will conduct pre and post-test and select the best performing enumerators and supervisors for this survey. 

Data Collection and Geographical Coverage

The data of this study will be collected from the samples in the selected areas comprised of 44 unions under 24 Upazilas of 20 districts under four divisions. The districts will be selected randomly from the clusters of hill, haor/baor/char, plain land, and coastal areas. The study team will assist the consulting firm in selecting districts, upazilas and unions. After selection of districts, upazilas and unions, the consulting firm will contact the respective officers of the Ministry of Education departments to collect the list of schools by GPS, NNGPS, special schools per the randomly selected district, upazalas, and union in the four divisions. to prepare the sampling frame of the district and select required number of schools randomly for data collection.

The data will be collected via mobile phones or tabs as well as note taking converted to a Word file and then entered into a qualitative software. The consulting firm must review data collection and take necessary measure if there is any missing of interview or any question is unattended. Once data collection is complete, the consulting firm will clean the quantitative and qualitative databases and check data for the consistency. Afterwards, the consulting firm will analyse the data following the data analysis plan provided by the study team. The analysis will be limited to descriptive statistics for the quantitative interview and observation data, and basic qualitative data analysis for the Group Discussions. It would be appreciated if the data analyst of the consulting firm meets study team to understand the needs and perform analysis to cater their needs. Some of these needs may be beyond the data analysis plan.

Duration and Timeline

The data collection of the school survey is expected to be completed within 20 working days, including 15 days of field work in the study areas as stated above. Then data cleaning, consistency checking, and analysis should be completed within 15 days of data collection and the report (descriptive statistics as per data analysis plan) should be submitted to ME&A by no later 35 days after signing the contract.

Tasks and duties

• Meet with the study team to get a clear understanding the assignment
• Get data collection tools and guidelines from the study team and understand them properly
• Prepare online application following the data collection tools and guidelines
• Field test the application as per guideline mentioned under section 4.1
• Recruit enumerators and supervisors
• Organize training of the enumerators including a day for field practice
• Prepare data collection plan and share with study team for suggestions
• Deploy enumerators and supervisors for data collection
• View server to check data collection every day
• Get data analysis plan from the study team
• Prepare Field Guide Report
• Clean data
• Analyse data as per data analysis plan and share with the study team
• Prepare the final tabular report with descriptive statistics in English and submit to ME&A
• Submit clean data set to ME&A BMEL and well as the full set of Group Discussion transcripts.

Deliverables

• Online mobile apps for data collection tools
• Sampling frame per geographic area
• Data collection plan
• Progress reports
• Database of data collection from 88 schools, and code key
• Draft field report for comments
• Final field report
• Draft tabulator report analysing data using descriptive statistics for the quantitative data and qualitative analysis for qualitative data for comment
• Final tabulator report analysing data using descriptive statistics for the quantitative data and qualitative analysis for qualitative data

Human Resources

The consulting firm will require the following human resources to complete the task as per timeline mentioned above:

• 40 enumerators
• 8 supervisors
• 1 data analyst
• 1 survey coordinator
• 1 mobile apps programmer

Fees

ME&A will pay remuneration of the staff mentioned for the stipulated period. In addition to the remuneration, ME&A will pay the cost of travel, accommodation, perdiem and/or any other necessary expenditure on fixed term basis (based on a detailed calculation). The Consulting Firm will receive 10% of the total remuneration after signing the agreement, 20% upon completing training enumerators, and testing data collection instruments. 30% upon completion of data collection. Another 40% will be paid after the submission of final report. Tax will be deducted at source as per the rules and procedures of Government of Bangladesh.

General conditions

• ME&A reserves the right to disagree with any incomplete work and consequently ME& may retain the last instalment of the remuneration.
• The contracting authorities also reserve the right to amend this contract at any time according to the necessity of the project given prior communication.
• The contract may be terminated if their outputs are found non-compliant to the terms and conditions of the contract.
• ME&A will have the copy right of all results and documents elaborated under this assignment. Any publication also in extracts needs prior approval of ME&A.

Proposal submission

The consulting firms interested to apply are kindly requested to submit the following on or before 18 February 2020 through e-mail: bmeljobs@engl.com