Call for Expression of Interest for a short-term expert assignment-Improving the Quality and Attractiveness of TVET in Lebanon (QuA-VET)

Project background and scope of the work:

Lebanon is a small middle-income country with an open and largely service-oriented economy that has a long-standing and strong proactive commercial tradition. SMEs are the dominant form of business organization, particularly micro- and small enterprises and there is a large informal sector in the country. Overall economic growth was high in recent years but significantly dropped in 2011 and the outlook for the near future is not promising. Though recent data are not available, the Lebanese labour market is traditionally characterized by a low employment rate, high youth unemployment, a high influx of foreign workers as well as Syrian refugees. In such context of a stumbling economy associated with growing skills shortages and a young population seeking employment opportunities, high pressure is put on the Lebanese Vocational and Technical Education (VTE) system not only to deliver more skills, but also different skills sets tied to the changing needs in the economy. Furthermore, the anticipation of the labour market´s needs through the Lebanese VTE system is rather insignificant. There is a consensus that training providers are predominantly supply-led and that vocational streams do not provide adequate practical skills for employability. As a result, the private sector finds it difficult to recruit skilled young professionals, but at the same time is only prepared to play a minor role in their training.

The project "Improving the Quality and Attractiveness of Vocational Education and Training in Lebanon" aims to increasingly align vocational education and training in sectors with sustainable employment potentials with the needs of the Lebanese economy.

Emphasis is placed on improving the partnership between vocational training institutions and the private sector, strengthening human resource capacity in vocational training institutions, and developing practice-oriented training programs. The target groups of the project are young people, unemployed and underemployed adults who want to improve their employment prospects through qualifications relevant to the labour market.

The implementing partner is the Directorate General for Vocational and Technical Education (DGVTE), which lacks capacity at various levels to involve the private sector in vocational education and training. This concerns curriculum development, teacher training and the expansion of practical elements in teaching. The project's advisory approach includes establishing and advising coordination bodies with representatives of the state vocational training sector and company representatives at the macro and steering levels, piloting cooperation models between vocational training institutions and the private sector, systematic human resources development in public vocational training institutions and testing competency-based, modularized training programs.

Description of the activities to be performed by the STE:

To assure a consistent level of quality of the content and the flow of the BT courses, a standard process for the development of competency-based Curricula has been defined and will be applied to the revision of existing curricula in the fields of “Manufacturing Machine Maintenance” and “Health inspection”.

The curriculum of a training module is composed by the following documents:

• Occupational standard: A4 page describing synthetically the processes to be carried out by the job holder
• Qualification standard: A4 page defining the Competence Units and the learning outcomes for each competence unit
• Assessment standard: A definition of the conditions and the criteria for the assessment of the learning outcomes of each Competence Unit included in the qualification standard 4
• Qualification certificate: The document that certify the holder has passed the assessment and has acquired the abilities stated in the qualification standard
• Education standard: The document describing the topics covered in each classroom lesson (if any) and the practical activities in the workshop and in the workplace (on the job training) carried out by the trainee with the timing planned for each of them
• Training standard: The training standard is a guidance for the teacher and the trainer to deliver the lessons. The training standard is defining the topics covered in the lesson with some description for each topic and at the same time set the working procedure that are in line with best practice that should be implemented during the training program.

The assignment consists of complete Occupational, Qualification and Assessment standards, Education standards and develop the Training standards (the part related to the topics and activities) and provide extra documentation (video included and specifications of materials) for the use of the teachers and trainers for the CBT module curricula addressing indicatively the occupations of:

Maintain and operate manufacturing equipment in the light industry

Occupations at level 3 of the EQF.

Perform replacement of damaged mechanical, electrical, electromechanical (contactor automation), pneumatic and hydraulic parts and implement routine maintenance on manufacturing equipment. Operate, after a limited on the job training, specific machines in the light industry.

Maintain manufacturing equipment and production lines

Occupations at level 4 of the EQF.

Perform diagnostic to identify defective parts on manufacturing equipment. Instruct, guide and support maintenance operator to repair or replace defective parts. Perform setting and measurement to assure the functioning of equipment according to the specification of the equipment manufacturer. Organize preventive maintenance on manufacturing equipment and production lines for food processing, printing, and metal works.

As a precondition the expert will get familiarized with the methodology and process to develop his/her own CBT modules in the frame of a training of trainers (ToT), which is not remunerated, but free of charge and mandatory.

The ToT course will be conducted in distance learning modality (online), 4 sessions of 3 hours each in 2 consecutive weeks. The Expert should also consider a minimum of additional 3 hours to complete the assignments given during the session that will be revised during the following session to provide feedback for improvement.

After the completion of the 4th session, the attendees will be assigned to develop one complete Competence Unit representing indicatively 20-25% of a complete CBT module curriculum.

The performance of each attendee will be assessed and upon successful development of the assignment in the frame of the ToT according to quality criteria set by the project, the attendee will be contracted as short-term expert to develop the CBT modular curricula.

Outputs/Results:

The outputs / results requested are:

• 100% attendance of ToT course on developing CBT modules
• 100% fulfilment of the assignments required as part of the course
• Development of 1 Competence Unit of a CBT module within 7 days from the last session of the ToT course following the standards presented during the ToT course containing
  • Occupational,
  • Qualification,
  • Assessment,
  • Education and
  • Training standards (about 15 pages) related to the selected competence unit
  • drafted in English according to the template provided and following the example given

Administrative Deliverables:

Expert Profile

• University degree at least at bachelor level on mechanical engineering or alternatively 4 additional years of working experience in the mechanical sector (preferably as maintenance manager) after a TS level or equivalent in a mechanic discipline (minimum requirement)
• Fluency in Arabic language
• Fluency in English language
• Proficient in use of MS Office (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook) or equivalent application

General professional experience

• One of the following is a mandatory requirement and the remaining two are preferred requirements:
  • At least 3 years of teaching technical subjects in a Vocational School or University (on contractual basis)
  • At least 100 hours of delivering technical training
  • At least 2 years of working experience in a manufacturing sector

Specific professional experience

• Previous experience in writing / following working procedures in the mechanical sector (preferred requirement)

Conditions:

• Availability of a PC or laptop with Office applications and stable internet access
• Motivation to spend 8h in front of a computer screen.
• Participants of the ToT will receive a compensation of 120$ for

1 Competence Unit of a CBT module drafted within 7 days from the last session of the ToT course following the standards and criteria presented during the ToT course containing

• • Occupational,
  • Qualification,
  • Assessment,
  • Education and
  • Training standards (about 15 pages) related to the selected competence unit
  • drafted in English according to the template provided and following the example given and, under the condition they attended 100% of the online training sessions and delivered all course assignments
• Only selected participants that will deliver successfully all the outputs as stated above following the ToT will be contracted as short-term experts