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Terms of Reference – Audit of MEHE IT functions

 

Introduction

 

In 2013, the Government of Lebanon opened its public education system to cater for the enormous numbers of refugee students. In 2017/2018, non-Lebanese students outnumbered Lebanese students in the public education system. The responsibility for educating all these students resides with the Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) who, alongside a range of donors, launched the Reaching All Children with Education II (RACE II) programme in 2016.

 

The World Bank (WB) and Government of Lebanon (GoL), especially the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE), designed Support to RACE II (S2R2) to deliver on significant parts of RACE2 as the strategy relates to the formal education sector.  S2R2 is designed to complement other work developed to support RACE II, such as activities planned and implemented with UNICEF, UNHCR and UNESCO.

 

DFID Lebanon’s contribution to RACE II includes £86.6 million to the multi-donor trust fund as well as the provision of a world class technical assistance team to MEHE. In March 2018, a three year technical assistance project was awarded to Oxford Policy Management, which will expand the TA facility to serve additional MEHE priority areas to achieve the objectives of RACE II through MEHE’s Support to RACE II (S2R2) programme. The TA team will support the Government of Lebanon to deliver the immediate objectives of the S2R2 programme while building the capacity, systems and processes which will underpin a medium-term sector development strategy.

 

Audit of MEHE IT functions

 

Role: Short-term, fast response audit of MEHE IT functions. This should happen in across a two week period but the number of consultants required to conduct the work may vary depending on their skills, agreed coverage of the components below and the depth of audit proposed.

 

Rationale: MEHE currently has a large number of IT processes, and an important flow of sensitive and confidential data transmitted over the network and managed in the main site as well as in external sites.

 

Objectives:

  • Verify if IT functions are aligned to MEHE mandate and activities
  • Identify areas where IT functions are not fit for purpose and recommend improvements.
  • Assess the levels of data security including data security policies, the environment and IT topology
  • Review the development cycle including the quality control and quality assurance procedures related to development.

 

 

Approach: A comprehensive audit of MEHE IT functions is required. The following is an indicative scope of the IT audit required. The first task would be to meet with the DG of General Education and agree on the scope and depth of the audit. Once agreed, the team would conduct a broad audit of the agreed functions within the initial ten-day period, write a report and seek direction from the DG of General Education on which areas would require additional assessment in any further phase of the audit.

 

We propose the following as focus areas for the audit:

 

  1. IT infrastructure: audit should assess the appropriateness of network & security topologies and set up, the operation of servers, data storage and data back-up, and the data archiving system.

 

  1. IT core applications: audit should assess current state of core applications and software, the development cycles, compliance of IT services with functional requirements, level of usage of the applications by stakeholders.

 

  1. IT governance: the audit should examine the existing IT policies and procedures, the alignment of IT services to MEHE mandate, the data flow, access and security policies, the level of segregation of duties, and the Business Continuity Plan.

 

Further, IT procurement and contracts with suppliers should be reviewed, and the level of support of suppliers should be assessed. The audit should also evaluate IT resource allocation and management, relating it to the quality of support and performance.

 

The assessment should be followed by recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the IT systems at MEHE with a prioritised list of the most urgent and important recommendations.

 

REPORTS TO:  OPM TA Team Leader.

 

STATION: This task will be conducted by a small team of external consultants working on a short term basis and utilising their specialist skills in this area. All necessary introductions to MEHE staff, access to MEHE IT functions and interviews with IT users will be granted by the DG General Education.

PROFILE AND SKILLS:

The team of consultants/organisation should demonstrate:

  • Experience conducting similar institutional-level IT audits of large and complex organisations in the past
  • Understanding of good practice in complex IT system design
  • Ability to map processes and assess relevance, suitability and fitness for purpose
  • Expertise across all three components listed above (IT infrastructure, IT applications and IT governance)
  • Understanding of IT policies and practices within GoL Ministries/departments
  • Fluency in English and Arabic is necessary (French would also be advantageous)

 

INDICATIVE TIMELINE AND WORK PLAN

Task

Number of days required

To be completed by

Broad audit of MEHE IT functions 

10 days per person (likely 2-3 people required)

Mid-November 2018

 

Expired

NOTE:

Daleel Madani, the civil society network, serves as a platform for organisations to post their professional opportunities, but is not involved in the recruitment process. The hiring organisation is solely responsible for the job and candidate selection.

Last modified: 
06 Nov, 2018
Intervention Sector(s):
Coordination & Information management
Application Deadline:
Friday, 9 November 2018
Contract Type:
Consultancy
Period of Employment:
10 Days
Salary
N/A
Salary Range:
> 3000 (USD)
Education Degree:
Masters Degree
Education Degree Details:
Experience Requirements:
More than 10 years
Arabic Language:
Excellent
English Language:
Excellent
French Language:
None
Country/City: 
  • Lebanon
  • Beirut