Request for Proposal for KPALP App Development

Summary

CEQUE is accepting proposals to design, develop and host the KPALP mobile app with multiple languages support to facilitate its users, backed by web application for administration purpose. This will be a concept to completion production followed by ongoing maintenance, updates and support.

About The Project

Reform in school education has been much debated and various strategies have been employed to ensure that children are in school and learning. The State Government of Maharashtra’s ‘Pragat Shaikshanik Maharashtra (PSM),’ is a key policy directive towards this end. Since its initiation in June 2015, the PSM has managed to re-energize the school system through its ambitious goal of ensuring all students from grades 1 to 8 master basic skills in reading and mathematics and for those who already possess basic skills, to achieve mastery in grade-level competencies. The PSM has recognized teachers as being central to achieving this goal and for the first time alsorecognized the need for teacher autonomy to choose the best possible methods to support their students’ learning. Further, through the PSM, the government seeks to guarantee need-based training to teachers, as per their demand. By doing away with the top-down, one-size-fits-all training model, the government expects teachers to identify their own areas of need and demand support from the academic support institutions comprising of the Cluster and Block Resource Centers, the DIECPD and the MAA. However, in the present scenario, the teachers are neither skilled nor encouraged to reflect critically on their classroom experiences to be able to identify instructional gaps. While the role of Kendra Pramukhs (KPs) is envisaged as that of academic coaches for teachers, helping teachers identify their academic needs, and supporting them where required to address student learning, in reality, KPs are neither skilled to provide such leadership nor do they view their role as such. Given the strong link between improvement of teacher instructional practice and the need for academic support, developing KPs as academic coaches’ gains priority. In response to this priority, UNICEF in partnership with CEQUE and MAA (including DIECPDs of 3 districts), developed and implemented the KP Academic Leadership Course, designed to skill KPs as academic coaches. The Course focused on equipping 93 KPs with skills to provide data based academic mentorship to teachers in order to bring academic improvements in their cluster. The pilot was initiated in the three districts of Maharashtra, namely, Chandrapur, Palghar and Pune, from July 2016 to August 2017.

Based on the results of the pilot program and discussions with MAA, it has been agreed that three simultaneous programs will be implemented in the state: The KPALP- Basic (Pilot scale -up) to KPs in 34 Focus Blocks ; KPALP Pilot (Urban & Tribal block) direct intervention by UNICEF - CEQUE for KPs; Specific (but limited) inputs to all KPs in the State (KPALP - Orientation: Census); and KPALP - Advance, Phase 2 for the KPs that were previously in the UNICEF-CEQUE pilot program me (between July 2016-Aug 2017). The focus block KPALP will provide inputs and coaching support to KPs building their academic leadership skills. Based on the available resources within the state, KPALP to be initiated in 34 blocks across the state from Jan ’17.

Overall 451 KPs will be covered in the program. This program will run for over a period of one year in a cascade mode. Approximately 100 coaches will be trained by group of Master facilitators comprising of CEQUE and state members who in turn will impart the same training to the KPs of the chosen blocks

Requirement Description and Modules

Objective

Our primary objective is to scale up process and smooth tracking of progress, it is required to build a mobile app for KPALP program that will facilitate its users (Master facilitators, Coaches and Kendra Pramukhs). The evaluation process should be comprehensive. Use of graphs and other visual methods are highly desirable. Admin will use web app.

Main Modules

As per our current needs assessment, we propose to have the following modules developed. We expect and are open to new ideas/requirements that can be converted to modules based on usage and feedback once the first beta version is rolled out.

1.Districts/Blocks/Clusters/schools management: The program covers many schools and the schools are grouped together into clusters. There are several clusters in a Block and each District covers many Blocks. We need a management system that helps in managing and grouping of these entities.

2.Workshop management: The core focus area of the application is the workshop management. As we can understand the final purpose of the program is to train the teachers. There are Master facilitators, Coaches and Kendra Pramukhs. One Master facilitator supervises and trains many Coaches, further each Coach supervises and trains many Kendra Pramukhs. After the training is imparted to the Kendra Parmukh he/she is responsible to conduct activities/training to impart good teaching practices in school teachers. Workshop management system will let the Master facilitator/Coach/KP to manage workshop.

• They should be able to create new workshop
• Add participants to the workshop
• Notify the participants
• Take attendance
• Simple messaging system to exchange messages in near real time
• Should be able to approve or disapprove a workshop

3.Assignment management: Should allow the Master facilitator/Coach to create new assignments related to a workshop. This assignment can be in the form of questionnaire or descriptive questions. Against each question, Coach/KP should be allowed to answer in the form of choice, text or upload files like video, doc file, image file etc. Any person who has attended the workshop should get the assignment. Certain activities such as taking observations on how the teaching learning process takes place and writing them as feedback (written feedback are called shere). This feedback will now be captured in a pre-set physical format and uploaded as assignment for workshop.

4.User, Role and authentication management: This module should allow to create users and assign them some role. Each role should have certain authentication based on which the user can get access to certain pages only. Below is the list of proposed users

Admin

The role of the admin will be handled by government functionary as identified by MAA. Admin will be responsible for managing Districts/Blocks/Clusters/schools, He will be adding other users into the system. Admin should be able to view all data and create assignments/workshops for the Coach/KP.

Master Facilitator(MF)

Master facilitator is the person responsible for training and coaching the coaches. He conducts workshops, gives assignments to the coaches. MF also analyses and tracks the performance of coaches under him and for the KPs under the Coach.

Coach

Coach is the person responsible for training and coaching the Kendra Pramukhs. . He conducts workshops, gives assignments to the KPs. Coach also analyses and tracks the performance of Kendra Pramukh’s under him.

Kendra Pramukh (KP)

KP is the person responsible for training the teachers at schools. KP receives training from coach and implements it at the school level. He attends the workshops and submits the assignments given in the workshop. KP does class/school visits and perform activities at school/cluster level and reports the status or progress of the same.

Note: Admin would create and manage all users in the system. MF would rate the Coaches, coaches would rate the KP’s. One Kendra Pramukh will have one cluster under him, in some cases it might be two clusters.

5.Feedback and rating management:

This module should let the members to rate each other on the basis of few defined criteria like attendance, assignments, teaching abilities etc.

- Coaches and KP should be able to give feedback on workshops.

- MF can do rating for Coaches under him under various parameters and coaches can rate KPs under him. Ratings should be calculated for lifetime including ratings given by various Coaches (to KP) and MFs (to Coach). Rating should be separately be done at 3 levels (Baseline, Mid line, End line) for each parameter. Admin can view rating separately for baseline/midline/endline. The skill matrix ratings should be represented in a tabular form with columns.

- We need a modern and scientific method of feedback/rating system designed for education sector so that we can track the performance of each individual and workshop.

6.Performance matrix management system: We would like to see more comprehensive system of monitoring progress and performance of each individual whether the individual is a trainer or trainee. A comprehensive rubric is developed for tracking the skill levels of coaches and KPs. Completion of assignments and attendance will be one the indicators that will be tracked over and above the rubric Proposed performance matrix should be something as below, Exact criteria can be decided later.

a. Completion of assignments

• 5 points if assignments submitted in 24 hours
• 4 points if assignments submitted in 24-48 hours
• 3 points if assignments submitted 48-72 hours
• 2 points if assignments submitted 72-96 hours
• 1 point if assignments submitted 96 hours

b. Attendance

• 5 points if all workshops attended
• 4 points if 80-99% workshops attended
• 3 points if 50-79 % workshops attended
• 2 points if 25-50% workshops attended.
• 1 point if less than 25 % workshops attended.

7.Similarly, trainers should also be evaluated on certain parameters. We are expecting out of the box ideas for this kind of assessment and should not be limited to what we have suggested. Performance level indicator and alerts whenever the performance of a Kendra Pramukh / Coach is falling below a certain level.

8. School/Cluster monitoring and assessment: KP is responsible for monitoring schools and clusters. KP is responsible for monitoring tracking of school and enter assessment data of the school. Also, KP will track teacher competency based on pre-set criteria. We can discuss more about the type of data that will be captured for school/cluster monitoring.

9. Meeting management system: This system works in similar fashion as workshop management. Meeting happens for coaching and follow-ups. Meeting is created and invites are sent to all the participants. After meeting minutes of meeting is captured and individual comments are captured.

10. Classroom activity management: KP conducts different activities for his teachers in the classroom. The system should be able to maintain the details and history of all the activities happening in the classroom.

11. Simple messaging module: This module should allow the members to message each other with near real time capability. Other than messaging this should also provide push notification facility.

12. Reports: Reports should be shown to admin/ MF/ Coach. Report could be on individual level or grouped at cluster or at overall level with ability to choose academic year or a specific date range. Some of the reports are (more can be :

• Performance report for MFs/ Coaches/ KPs: this report should show overall performance of against the various task he has been assigned to them.
• Attendance and assignment completion report: Attendance/assignment completion marked against time to for an individual/grouped for all.
• Skill matrix graph: This would enable admin/ MF / Coach to identify skill progress.
• Skill matrix comparison report: Skill matrix movement of all KP's under a coach would be marked with the skill matrix movement of the coach
• Skill movement report: percentage of KPs/Coaches with positive/negative skill movement in last x months
• Percentage attendance levels marked against positive skill movement: KPs/Coaches with 80-100% attendance and positive skill movement on one or more skill or no positive skill movement.
• School status report: School status and assessment data (marks) would be marked against the KP movement on skill matrix.

Qualifications:

• Provide the information listed below as part of your proposal:
• List the few web sites your firm has produced that best reflect your work and relevancy to this project. Briefly list the role your firm played in each project. The URL should be submitted. Only sites that are live will qualify during evaluation.
• Describe your experience in producing sites specifically for the education sector.
• Provide current reference information for three former or current clients.
• Briefly describe your firm’s organizational capacity to produce our application (e.g. staff, equipment, software, physical space, office location, etc.).
• How many full-time staff does your firm employ?
• Provide a company profile, length of time in business and core competencies.
• What type of team will be assigned to this project? What will each person’s role be? Please include a brief background summary for each key staff member assigned to this project.
• Briefly describe your firm’s project management process like project management tool used etc.
• Please discuss your testing and support plan.
• Time frame for project completion (is the proposed timeline in this RFP achievable?)
• Process to include input from all program areas. Please state how you intend to communicate with all program areas to gather all of the required information.
• What are the average experience of developers, team lead, architect and project manager
• Code management process like versioning system used, process of building and deploying the code. Mention if DevOps methodology is used
• Brief about coding standard and code review process
• Any references of UN, NGOs or government agency for which you have worked
• Experience with third party portal integration
• Propose the content hosting like videos, audios, images etc. architecture
• Propose approach to identifying and managing computer system and software risks, and assess the initial risks and mitigation activities identified by the offeror’s.
• Propose approach for software problem reporting, tracking, and resolution.
• Propose approach for software sustainment planning.
• Bench mark the software performance criteria
• How ready will be your software for cloud and future scaling
• How you are going to handle copyright issues related to resources that are going to be used
• Security aspects of the application
• Propose the training and handover process
• Costing and length of few of the previous projects that you have done that you feel justifies
• your capabilities

Proposal Guidelines with Terms and Conditions

This is an open and competitive process.

Proposals received after 19th March 2018, will not be considered.

Kindly submit your technical and financial proposal separately. The proposal must have the letter head of the company submitting the proposal.

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