COMMUNICATIONS EXPERT

OPM TA Team Short Term Technical Assistance ToR

Title: Communications EXPERT

Working with

CERD communications Team

CERD S2R2 Team

CERD Digital Learning Initiative Team

Reports to

CERD President, CERD OPM TA and S2R2 Focal Points and OPM Programme Directors

Contribution to Output

CERD Output

1. Scope and description of the Task

In recent years, Lebanon has become the country with the highest refugee per capita in the world. Officially, there are more than 1.5 million registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a third of which are school going aged children. In 2013, the Government of Lebanon (GoL) opened a second-shift in its public education system to cater for the enormous numbers of refugee students. The responsibility for educating all these students resides with the Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) who, alongside external donors, launched the Reaching All Children with Education II (RACE II) programme in 2016.

The World Bank (WB) and GoL, especially the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) and the Centre for Educational Research and Development (CERD), designed Support to RACE II (S2R2) to deliver on significant parts of RACE II 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 the education sector includes support to S2R2 as well as the provision of a technical assistance team to MEHE and a separate team to CERD. In March 2018, a three-year technical assistance project was awarded to Oxford Policy Management, which expanded an existing TA facility to serve MEHE priority areas to achieve the objectives of RACE II. The TA team supports the GoL to deliver the immediate objectives of the S2R2 programme while building the capacity, systems and processes which underpin a medium-term sector development strategy.

1. Background AND OBJECTIVES

The Centre for Educational Research and Development (CERD) has been extremely responsive on the National Distance Learning Project. In a very short period of time, CERD has been able to mobilise support around delivery of TV content, establishment of an e-portal for mapped education links and roll out of a ‘virtual classroom’ environment for all students in Lebanon. This latter virual environment provides a space for collaboration to communicate and collaborate, produce, save and share all kinds of documents and a LMS enabling creation of trackable assignments for individuals, groups or classes, allowing an engaging interactive learning experience and instantaneous feedback.

As was also recommended in OPM’s recent Capacity Needs Assessment, CERD requires support with its communications function. Given the importance and urgency of the distance learning project, it is imperative that critical resources, such as CERD’s Digital Learning initiative are communicated widely to ensure wider take-up.

The current main goal for CERD in terms of communication is to engage with widespread targeted audience elaborated further in the ToRs and spread awareness regarding this Digital Learning Initiative (DLI) and build a community of digital users. This is part of a communications strategy that would highlight all other activities of CERD.

OBJECTIVES

A communications consultant (individual or agency) to work with CERD and relevant stakeholders to develop a coherent communications plan to raise awareness and stimulate uptake of e-learning resources to the widest audience possible.

The communications consultant (individual or agency) will lead the development and implementation of a communications strategy with the aim to raise awareness on the digital learning initiative and support CERD’s communications functions in line with its priorities and the S2R2 Program.

Target audience needs to be addressed in light of the identified deliverables.

1. SCOPE OF WORK AND DELIVERABLES

The consultancy service will be contracted to:

1. 1. Develop a communication strategy for the Digital Learning Initiative (DLI) in line with CERD and S2R2 needs/ target audience.
   2. Create a full-fledged communication plan to support the launching and sustainability of the Digital Learning Platform.
   3. Increase engagement and traffic: working on social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and CERD website).
   4. Content creation and curation in line with the DLI vision and adapted to the different channels.
   5. Track and analyse social and web data and optimize targeted social campaigns, as well as assign return-on-investment-driven metrics to the DLI campaign, including but not limited to measuring the engagements on social media: Google analytics, Facebook pixels impressions, likes, shares, organic reach, comment and viewers and writing a detailed report from the insights.
   6. Manage in line with CERD communications functions, the CERD’s social media profiles and presence, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and potentially additional channels including website development and maintenance related to the DLI
   7. Lead all digital marketing initiatives, namely to CERD’s DLI, including search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, campaign landing page development, retargeting and marketing automation.
   8. Supervise and control crafting, writing, and editing blog posts, website, newsletters, press releases, speeches and talking points of CERD related to the DLI.
   9. Organize events, support in campaigns launching or any other activity contributing to brand building through the DLI.
   10. Support CERD communications functions to build and maintain relationships with the media and production business and experts, especially the network engaged in DLI promotion and build a pool of relevant network / database that CERD will use, even after the consultant’s mission is over. Assist CERD communications functions to build and maintain relationships with the targeted audience identified below and build a pool of relevant network / database that CERD will use, even after the consultant’s mission is over.
   11. Organize roundtable discussions, press conferences, briefing sessions, interviews, launches, focus groups, surveys, etc.
   12. Monitor and maintain records of media coverage and metrics.
   13. Implement all agreed strategies and follow up on the outcomes.
   14. Collaborate with key stakeholders to collect information, photo and video footages for the development of promotional materials and other activities.
   15. Closely work with and build the capacity of CERD concerned stakeholders, namely CERD Communication and Public Relations Unit and team.
   16. Train CERD teams on the use of available CERD resources contributing to the communications plan and advise on best outsourcing options – when needed and when in-house production for instance is not an optimal option.
   17. Other activities and/or tasks that contribute to increasing the visibility and the outreach of CERD and CERD’s Digital Learning Initiative.

Direct target audience of the Communication Plan

Below are the major stakeholders within this category; they are the ones benefiting from this service and they include but are not limited to:

1. Around 1,400,000 students (public and private schools)
2. Around 100,000 Teachers (public and private schools)
3. More than 3,000 principals
4. Educational staff in public and private schools
5. Schools’ pedagogical bureaus
6. Teachers and schools unions, leagues and syndicates
7. Parents and Community

Indirect target audience of the Communication Plan

The major indirect target stakeholders include but are not limited to:

1. Donors Community
2. Public sector education partners, including the Minister’s office, MEHE (Primary, Secondary, DOPS, Exams, REOs), TVET, Higher Education and the Lebanese University
3. Private sector education partners
4. Press and media network, locally, regionally, and internationally

DELIVERABLES

Deliverables will be better planned and assessed in light of the Communications plan to include, but not limited to:

1. Strategy and Ads management
2. Implementation
   1. Press and traditional media including TV / radio appearances
   2. Digital campaign
   3. Communication for seminars with schools (public, private, etc.)
   4. Communication for trainings to teachers, principals, etc. via CERD-PITB (Pre and In-Service Training Bureau)
   5. Campaigns / Outreach to students, parents, NGOs and Donors,
   6. Others as suggested by the consultant
3. Capacity building of CERD team
4. Training and Transfer of Knowledge 

Coaching and train the trainers activities will be provided by the Consultant team as per suggestions provided in the approved work plan, in close collaboration with CERD’s assigned team and concerned functions.

Co-working is a key condition of this contract; however, in light of the urgency of the intervention, it is not practical for there to be a lot of formal training conducted in this programme. Instead a 70-20-10 model is proposed whereby 70% of the skills transfer is completed through on-the-job related learning; 20 % from the exchanges, interactions and reflections with experts and a minimum of 10% for formal training that is expected in this crisis context.

The consultant is expected to suggest a swift and implementable action plan based on the above; yet, a more customized plan shall be proposed by the consultant during the inception phase, in co-construction with the concerned. In fact, the scope of work delineates a myriad of capacity building opportunities, to be later incorporated in the work plan and in the deliverables, such as approach and methodology to building a communication plan, most up-to-date and efficient techniques for ensuring visibility and mass outreach, digital campaigns planning, database building for media and production business and experts, etc. let alone the fact that the consultant will be actually co-working with several CERD stakeholders, namely CERD Communication and Public Relations Unit, CERD Technical Units with the Educational Radio TV and Printing Press, CERD Educational Installations and Materials Support Bureau (CERD-EIMSB) with the production services, to name a few. 

1. TIMELINE

The deliverables will depend on the precise details of the communication plan but an outline is given below:

Phase 1 - Strategy: Up to 2 weeks to submit a complete communication strategy (including exploration phase, research, alignment meetings, etc.). To be executed in collaboration with the assigned focal point from CERD.

Implementation: 1 to 6 months and based on the proposed strategy timeline and KPIs suggested by the expert. This will include a specific capacity building element in collaboration with CERD S2R2 Human Resources and Professional Development Expert, CERD communication team, and CERD S2R2 Communication Officer (Planned to join the team in 2 months).

1. DURATION, WORKING RELATIONSHIP AND STATION

The duration of the Consultancy is scheduled till December 2020.

The consultant will work from CERD and/or remotely depending on work requirement and on agreed work plan.

The consultant must be able to ensure a full time equivalence in terms of workload; most of the working schedule might be at CERD premises since they would need to participate in activities during business hours, as well as non-business hours as the tasks require. The consultant is expected to work from CERD in co-construction with CERD assigned teams – whenever applicable.

CERD resources -when available- can be used by the consultant as well as their own resources and devices.

CERD will appoint a Focal Point for this project to expedite the communication and ultimately the implementation. The consultant will report to the President of CERD and the services delivered will be overseen by the OPM Programme Directors as well as OPM TA and S2R2 Focal Points at CERD.

1. PROFILE AND SKILLS

The Consultant or agency’s team shall have the following qualifications:

Educational Background:

- Bachelor degree in communication, marketing or related fields. MBA degree is a plus.

Previous Experience

- Minimum 10 years of experience working in marketing and communication or relevant fields.

- Minimum 5 years in communications strategy development.

- Strong experience in developing and managing social media channels effectively to increase awareness.

- Capacity to create all type of content.

- Knowledge and understanding of local and global digital landscape’s trends.

- Solid knowledge of search engine optimizations and Google Analytics is a plus.

- Experience in reporting on qualitative and quantitative analytics.

- Knowledge of graphic design, photo editing.

- Experience in the Education field is preferred.

Languages

• Excellent oral and written communication skills in Arabic, English and French.

Competencies

- Excellent communication and inter-personal skills.

- Ability to innovate and try new approaches.

- Ability to think strategically.

- Commitment to CERD s values and high level of integrity.

- Strong analytical skills.

- Ability to demonstrate commitment to achieving the end result.

- Ability to maintain a good and professional relationship with all internal and external stakeholders.

- Coaching skills and knowledge sharing.

- Ability to work and synergize in teams.

1. PROCESS FOR APPLICATION

We are expecting applications from both individuals and agencies. However, the number of personnel mobilised on this set of activities should not exceed two individuals working closely together.

In the case of an agency or a small team applying, we will need to know the approximate proportion of time which will be spent by each of the consultants on the project and any such applications should include both CVs.

For individual consultants, we will just require a CV by way of application.

Successful applicants will be invited to be interviewed jointly by CERD and OPM.

1. Acceptance and Approval of Deliverables 

CERD will be responsible for the receipt and approval of each of the deliverables as per the deadlines mentioned under the approved work plan to be submitted by the consultant and to include: Deliverables, Tasks, and Timeframe.

It is up to a CERD-led committee to validate and accept the quality of the deliverable. All required corrections/comments should be completed within the requested/assigned time.

1. Reporting

Progress Reports. The bidder shall provide a biweekly progress status report that includes current progress against the project plan, itemizing the activities accomplished versus the previous progress report, the specific activities planned for the following week, and any problems which have occurred or are anticipated.

Progress reports will be prepared by the Consultant and to be presented to CERD’s President.

Completion Reports. The Consultant shall report on the completion of each part/phase and on the final completion. All required corrections/comments should be completed within 48 hours from feedback.

1. PAYMENT CONDITIONS

Remuneration amount will be based on the qualification of the consultant and will be paid monthly upon approval of deliverables.

Fees of the consultants are clearly separate from the communications plan implementation costs. This needs to be clearly delineated in the financial proposal.

Also, consultants need to be capable of conducting online payments, which will not be conducted by CERD, yet covered by the proposed budget. Payment Schedule can only be defined once the communications plan is identified.

Payment will be made upon completion of each of the main projects’ deliverable or phase – only after the deliverables have been validated by the review committee and amendments to the deliverables made accordingly.

The consultant is requested to share a payment plan proportionate to the level of efforts for each of these phases / deliverables alongside their suggested work plan.

1. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Intellectual Property Rights for the produced content remain vested in CERD full and exclusive ownership.

1. CONFIDENTIALITY

The consultant shall keep confidential all information which comes to their knowledge during, or as a result of, the implementation and execution of this project and in accordance of an NDA and non-circumvent agreement to be signed with awarded bidder.