Scope of Work for Nashik Cluster Library End of Project Study

1.    Organizational Overview

Room to Read envisions a world in which all children can pursue a quality education, reach their full potential, and contribute to their community and the world. To achieve this goal, we focus on two areas where we believe we can have the greatest impact: literacy and gender equality in education.  We work in collaboration with communities and local governments across Asia and Africa to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and support girls to complete secondary school with the life skills they’ll need to succeed in school and beyond. Over 10 million children have benefitted from Room to Read’s programs over the past ten years.

India is Room to Read’s fourth country of operation and has impacted millions of children with its key programs. Since our inception in 2003 in India, we have been touching the lives of young minds across states like: Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. We aim to make available educational opportunities and resources to more disadvantaged children in our mission to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy one child at a time.

 2.    Project Background

In recent years, Govt. of India has emphasized on the importance of having a school library to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Through various government initiatives such as Right to Education Act (RTE), 2009; Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat scheme, and National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the emphasis on reading and its importance for children’s learning outcome is evident. Furthermore, Right to Child to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 mandates a provision of library in school with ample amount of reading material accessible to children. Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat scheme launched in 2014 by the Govt. of India, follows an approach – ‘to improve language development by creating and enduring interest in reading and writing with comprehension’. To achieve its objectives, the scheme highlights the provision of a reading corner in school with appropriate children’s literature which could further facilitate early reading and writing process. Room to Read’s libraries, which is one of the core elements of its comprehensive Literacy Program, is one such initiative to improve children’s habit and love for reading.  Room to Read provides locally contextual and child-friendly quality reading materials that can be read during designated reading hours in school libraries created through Room to Read’s technical, material, and financial supports. It also provides training to school staff and other supports like periodic visits to manage and monitor the school libraries and library activities efficiently.

 

In 2019, Room to Read proposed to implement its cluster Library Program model across Nashik district of Maharashtra. For this, Room to Read and Motivation for Excellence signed the MOU with the goal of developing reading habit and love for reading for primary grade children of Zila Parishad schools of Nashik. The other objectives include, (a) build capacities of Kendra Pramukhs (Cluster Cadre) who in-turn trains teachers on reading activity, library management and support teachers’ during their school visits; (b) provide access to quality reading books through Cluster Library set-up and monthly rotation of books; and (c) create more quality reading material via series of material development workshops. To achieve the overall goal and objectives, libraries are established at cluster level of all 15 blocks in phase wise (Table 1) manner with provisioning of necessary library material at cluster level and for schools. Total number of schools under one cluster library varies from 7 to 26.  Books are rotated on monthly basis to the schools from the cluster libraries.

All reading activities and reading extension activities (e.g., establishment of e-libraries, Saturday reading day to encourage self and peer reading, and post reading activities such as character description, substitute title recognition by children) are conducted by the class teachers’ class wise during dedicated weekly library period and Check-In Check-Out (CICO) of books are maintained at the school level. Apart from class teachers, there are dedicated library resource person in each school to look after the library functioning and its management. The library resource persons are selected by cluster head and are trained for the program. Furthermore, they support class teachers wherever needed. In some cases, there is single point person who is in-charge of both, library management as well as in carrying out reading activities. Both library resource person and class teachers are supervised by school headmaster. The school headmaster is not trained nor provided with defined roles and responsibilities under the cluster library model. Hence, this study will not include school head teacher. The Cluster heads (Kendra Pramukh) are also trained on library activities and library management. They provide monitoring visits to the schools for effective functioning of libraries. The Education Extension Officer (EEO) supports 4-5 clusters in monitoring visits and timely updating monitoring formats. The monthly block level meetings are conducted with all cluster heads by the Block Education Officer (BEO) in each block to review the progress of the program. Education Extension Officer (EEO) supports BEO in conducting these meetings.

Phase	Phase 1 (Oct.'19 to March'22)*	Phase 2 (April'20 to March'22)	Phase 3 (April'21 to March'23)
Blocks**	4	6	5
Cluster libraries	59	108	80
Schools	783	1358	1131

Table 1: Project Roll Out details

*Started in Oct 2019 with initial six months spent on setting up the infrastructure, preparation for the intervention, books circulation etc.  Then considering 2 academic years from 2020. 

**Total: Phase 1 blocks – 4; Phase 2 blocks – 10 (6 new); Phase 3 blocks – 15 (5 new)

3.    Study Domain and Questions

The key research domains and questions the study aims to address are:

I.              Assessment of program implementation fidelity

RQ1.1 What is the extent of project implementation in terms of resources availability and management in school libraries?

RQ1.2: To what extent do respective stakeholders understand their roles and responsibilities? And how effectively do they perform them?  in intervention at various levels:

• At school level: Class teachers and Library resource person
• At cluster level: Cluster head
• At block level: Education Extension Officer (EEO) and Block Education Officer (BEO)

RQ1.3: What can we understand about class teachers (a) attitude, (b) practices and (c) experiences; in carrying out reading activities?

RQ 1.4: What are the perspectives and experiences of library resource person, cluster heads, education extension officer and block education officer about the intervention.

II.         Assessment of children’s habit of reading

RQ2.1: What does program inform us about the children’s habit of reading?

RQ2.2: What are the factors associated with children’s habit of reading?

III.        Assessment of program sustainability

RQ3.1: What are the identified practices to sustain the project objectives in future?

RQ3.2: What are the challenges faced and how can it be overcome?

4.    Methodology and Sampling

4.1 Methodology

The end-of-project review will employ a mixed-methods approach, relying on a combination of qualitative data (from interviews and classroom observations) and quantitative data (from implementation monitoring data and questionnaires for students and teachers). Offline (In-person) data collection will be undertaken. Furthermore, the study will analyze the available secondary data on library functioning and its management at school level. Table 2 presents a research approach including method of data collection, suggested sample and stakeholders.

4.2 Sampling

Of the 15 blocks in Nashik, a total of six blocks (2 blocks from each Phase) will be selected based on convenience and purpose. The study will attempt to sample blocks with varied geographical locations. Secondly, the selection of clusters will be a combination of small, medium, and large cluster size in terms of no. of schools under each cluster. Five schools will be randomly selected from each of the six blocks. From sampled schools, library resource person and class teacher who conducts reading activities will be selected. If there is one person who is responsible for both library management and reading activities, then one respondent will be selected from that school. And randomly 10 students (5 each from Grade 3 & 5) from each school will be selected.

Table 2: Research Approach

Research Objectives	Source of Information	Unit	Max. Sample Size	Approx time per each interview/assessment	Method of Data Collection
I & III	Library Resource Person (LRP)	1 person/ school; 5 schools/ block; total 6 blocks	30	25-30 minutes	Key Informant Interview (using semi-structured tool)
	Class Teacher*	2 teachers (one each from grades 3 & 5)/ school; 5 schools/ block; total 6 blocks	60	25-30 minutes	Key Informant Interview (using semi-structured tool)
	Cluster Head	2 person/ block; total 6 blocks	12	20-25 minutes	Key Informant Interview (using semi-structured tool)
	Education Extension Officer (EEO)	1 person/ block; total 6 blocks	6	30-40 minutes	Key Informant Interview (using semi-structured tool)
	Block Education Officer (BEO)	1 person/ block; total 6 blocks	6	30-40 minutes	Key Informant Interview (using semi-structured tool)
	Reading Activity Observation	1 classroom/school; 5 schools/block; total 6 blocks	30 (15 for Grade 3 and 15 for Grade 5)	30-45 minutes	Structured Observation Format
II	Habit of Reading Assessment	5 children/ grade; 2 grades (grades 3 & 5)/ per school; total 30 schools	300	15-20 minutes	1:1 habit of reading assessment using structured tool
* It is possible that in some of the selected schools, the LRP is also responsible for doing the reading activities for the grades 3 and/or 5. In those schools, grade-specific information related to reading activities will be collected from the LRPs, instead of the teachers.

5.    Role of the Agency

The agency is required to undertake the following activities timely:

5.1  Selection of data collectors and their training

The agency will select required data collectors with appropriate skills, according to the prescribed guidelines pertaining to the qualification and field experience of data collectors and take care of all logistic arrangements for orientation/training of data collectors in field locations. The agency is expected to plan all logistic support required for data collection and need to ensure that the data collection team need to reach at school before scheduled time. On-time arrival of data collection team in school is a super priority area for Room to Read, so it is strongly suggested to agency to share a detailed data collection plan with data collection team details in the technical proposal. 

5.2 Data collection and analyses

The agency will collect data from the suggested sample as mentioned in Table 2. And undertake the following tasks:

• Library management and functioning: The agency will analyze the available secondary data on library management and its functioning. The data will be provided by Room to Read.
• Children’s habit of reading: The agency will collect data on habit of reading assessment and analyze the same. Agency is required to provide an outline of the habit of reading assessment data analysis process in their proposal. Secondly, agency will identify and analyze the factors associated with the habit of heading.
• Classroom observation: As prescribed in table 2, the agency will observe classroom reading activities and analyze the data.
• Key Informant Interviews: The agency will be responsible for conducting and documenting interviews. With the consent of respondent, the interviews will be recorded. Agency will be responsible for providing (a) recordings; and (b) soft copy of translated transcripts in English. Lastly, agency will analyze the gathered qualitative information, to address the above-mentioned research questions.
• The analysis plan can be shared with RTR RM&E team and mutually the analysis plan can be finalized.
• RtR will develop quantitative tools and classroom observation format and adapt them in survey CTO as required. For qualitative, RtR will develop the tool in word and the agency needs to arrange the recording device to record the qualitative interviews and index all interviews followed by transcription of interviews in English.

5.3  Data quality monitoring

The agency will be responsible for monitoring the quality of data being collected and cleaning any inconsistent data. Agency should appoint a supervisor who will be responsible for data quality. This includes coordination with school, cluster, and block point persons to secure necessary support for data collection for each site; monitor data collection; conduct data quality checks; provide necessary on-field technical support to the data collectors during collection etc. The agency needs to adhere to the following data quality Monitoring points during data collection

• The supervisor needs to cross check at least 10% of survey CTO data with that of audio recording of the interview and check the consistency of data
• The supervisor needs to check at least 5-10% of interview record of each one of the data collectors against the standard indicator of “Cognitive Interviewing Technique”
• A list of indicators of “Cognitive Interviewing Technique” is expected from the agency in the technical proposal against which the supervisor would cross check the quality of interview during data collection.
• The supervisor needs to the share the data quality monitoring data collected against the indicator of “Cognitive Interviewing Technique”
• Some debriefing sessions (at least 4-5) with the data collectors either through face to face / virtual mode needed to be organized to discuss the data quality issues and feedback of supervisor the performance of data collection team. To check the quality of data, it is strongly recommended to agency to organize a greater number of debriefing sessions in initial phase of data collection
• The supervisor needs to share the proceedings of each of the debriefing sessions with RtR.
• The supervisor needs to coordinate with RtR team for their input in each of the debriefing session

 6.    Role of Room to Read (RtR)

• Provide secondary data
• Provide data collection tools
• Provide all supporting documents such as program documents, school list, block list, educator/cluster heads contact details
• Support the agency in orienting the data collectors on data collection

7.    Team and Qualification

• Agency - Organization with 5-10 years in market and track record of successfully handling assessment/project review studies in the field of education.
• Personnel - Agency to have team leader, supervisor, and data collectors for the study. Knowledge and experience in educational assessment projects applying mixed methods approach is preferrable.

8.    Confidentiality and Ethics

During the data collection, the enumerators are expected to be sensitive to children and follow Room to Read’s Child Protection Protocols. It is suggested that enumerators take time to make the children comfortable before administering surveys. Prior appointment and consent for KIIs must be taken from the respective stakeholders. The interview recordings will be destroyed or deleted after the final report is submitted and approved by Room to Read. Room to Read will minimize the collection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and take appropriate measures to anonymize data.

9.    Key Deliverables and Timelines for Agency

Deliverables	Jan’22	Feb’22	Mar’22	Apr’22
Training of agency on data collection tools
Training of data collectors by the agency
Data collection
Data analysis
Report and presentation of key findings to RTR

Apart for the above, the agency will ensure the following activities:

• Prepare excel format to track the data collection status and report daily to RtR
• Submission of cleaned translated transcripts to RtR in Word format for each stakeholder type separately. This is to be done weekly
• Discuss the habit of reading assessment process with RtR
• Discuss the report format and key sections with RtR before writing the report

10.  Proposal Evaluation and Award Process

The selection committee will evaluate the proposals based upon their written technical and cost proposals. Each proposal will be evaluated first on the merits of the technical proposal. Those proposals that reflect sufficient quality in technical approach, work plan, staffing and management plan and organizational experience will advance to the cost proposal review. The award will be made to the offeror representing the best value to Room to Read. Offeror’s initial offer should contain the Offeror’s best terms from a price and technical standpoint. Room to Read reserves the right to conduct discussions or can ask the offerors for a presentation if determined necessary by Room to Read.

How to Apply

• Individual/Agencies Need to Submit TECHNICAL & FINANCIAL PROPOSALS IN SEPARATE EMAILS  
• Proposals to be submitted over Procurement.India@roomtoread.org (without copying anyone from RTR and neither the below mentioned email ID)
• Last Date for submission is 5^th Dec’2022
• Subject for submission of Technical Proposal – TECHNICAL PROPOSAL: End of Project Study
• Subject for submission of Financial Proposal  –  FINANCIAL PROPOSAL :  End of Project Study

Contact Person for Any Clarification:

Name: Vivek Shrawat 

Email Id: Vivek.shrawat@roomtoread.org

 

Tags Education and Education Technology (edtech)