Legal consultant

Purpose and objectives

The UNICEF-ECHO action will support establishing certification / accreditation procedures to facilitate the transition between formal and non-formal education in Lebanon. Overall, this will require agreeing on the standards, defining a certification procedure and establishing an accreditation agent. A compatible legal framework will also be required to support the enforcement of the procedures, establish the legal validity of the certificates and to actively promote the standards. These Terms of Reference are intended to describe a national consultant’s work in assisting in setting up this legal framework.

The responsibilities under this consultancy are:
1) To conduct a review of current legislation, ordinances, decrees, instructions and other legal instruments that rule the certification procedures of non-formal education (i.e., the granting of diplomas and certificates); specify the conditions of transitions between formal and non-formal education; the criteria of promotion, retention, and drop-out; the legal framework that sustains the curriculum and the standards, competencies or objectives associated to it; the rights and obligations of diploma or certificate granting institutions in Lebanon; and other conditions that might be relevant in considering the reforms that should be implemented to facilitate the non-formal to formal education transitions and the official validations of certificates of students that transitioned or are transitioning.
2) To document the legal opinions that would justify reforms in the legal framework to make possible the implementation of the certification process being designed.
3) Propose the specific legal instruments that need to be abolished, created or amended and the legal procedure to modify each.
4) Propose a legal strategy to operationalize the actions described in point 3 above.
5) Support the executive of the government of Lebanon in the implementation of the legal strategy mentioned above, including all Ministries that the analysis shows should be part of the reform (e.g., MEHE – DG’s office and CERD-, Ministry of Finances, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Labour, or others).