Terms of Reference (ToR) for Analysis of the 2024 National Education Budget Allocation for Higher and Tertiary Education
Deadline: 08 December 2023
Background
An organization established by a group of women human rights defenders coming together to make a significant and positive impact in Zimbabwe and beyond. This is against the realization that marginalized women and girls are being left behind in the development discourse of Zimbabwe, and the organization is determined to rewrite the narrative and give women and girls access to fundamental human rights. The lack of proper and coordinated social and feminist movements, the lack of solidarity and movement building in Zimbabwe to address the national crisis, especially around lack of proper democratic and economic governance, barriers in accessing comprehensive SRHR integrated with Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) and women exclusion in natural resources governance, exclusion in access to education for the girl child among other contemporary issues led to the formation of the organization.
Introduction
The organisation is conducting a short-term project on the plight of female students in institutions of higher learning who are between the ages of 18-24. Education financing is a key milestone in enhancing accessibility to education for marginalised communities especially young girls between the ages of 18-24. The allocation of public funds through the national budget play an important role in showing the nations commitment to the provision of education for all as outlined in the Education Amendment Act and section 75 of the national constitution.
It is against this background and the recent presentation of the 2024 national budget that the organisations seek the services of a consultant who will analyse the 2024 national budget allocations and the provisions for higher and tertiary education which can impact on education accessibility for young women in Zimbabwe.
Objectives of the assignment
The consultancy seeks to achieve the following objectives:
• Provide a broader analysis of the 2024 national budget towards education.
• Develop a clear budget analysis brief for higher and tertiary education, innovations, science and technology development.
• Identify the existing public finance related bottlenecks inline with adequacy, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, transparency and accountability.
• Provide clear recommendations for higher and tertiary education on higher education access by females of 18-24 years in Zimbabwe.
Deliverables and Payments
• Assessment and analysis of the amount of budget allocated to higher and tertiary education as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Products and total government budget (recurrent, development and aggregate)
• Analysis of the trends or percentage change in the government’s allocation and expenditure on Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovations, Science and Technology Development with a focus on accessibility to education for young women over the past two years.
• Detailed analysis of the structure of the sectors budgets by examining the internal distribution and cost areas as defined and classified in the Programs Based Budgets.
• Analysis of the budgeting processes and its equity dimensions.
• Disparities in the education subsectors allocation and expenditure for Primary and Secondary education and Higher and Tertiary Education (HTE)
• Key recommendations for more effective and efficient allocations and use of resources for (THE)
• Development of the draft shared workplan for budget tracking for the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on (HTE)
• The consultant is supposed to come up with a policy brief and power point presentation
to be presented to the organisation and parliamentary portfolio committee on higher and tertiary education HTE.
Minimum expertise, qualifications and other attributes
The consultant is supposed to have the following qualifications or experience required to complete the task:
1. An advanced university degree in Economics, Public Policy, Fiscal Reform or relevant areas.
2. Experience in Public Finance Management and budget analysis.
3. Proven experience on similar analysis of the state budget with focus on the education sector.
4. Strong analytical and writing skills, and the ability to present the results in a simple language making use of interesting visual aids (maps, graphs and other visual tools)
5. Consolidated knowledge and foundation on crosscutting themes such as equity and sectorial decentralisation.
6. Strong communication (oral and written) skills. Duration
The assignment will be expected to be completed in five (5) days.
Application Procedure
Interested and qualified should submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) containing a personal CV indicating past experiences of similar projects and references. One-page motivational letter and one-page methodology on how you intent to complete the task as well as financial proposal. Applications must be submitted to proposal@ciasa.org.zw by close of business 08 December 2023.
Terms of Reference (ToR) for Budget Review focusing on female right to Education