Serbia: Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) field expert

Background:

Serbia is situated along the preferred route through the Western Balkans for refugees and migrants originating from the Middle East and Asia, aiming to seek asylum in Europe. The vast majority of them want to seek international protection in the European Union. According to the available data, there are currently around 6300 refugees, asylum- seekers and migrants present in the country, out of whom 86% accommodated in the governmental facilities and the children represent approximately 40 % of them.

UNHCR and UNICEF have highlighted the extreme vulnerability of families travelling with children and unaccompanied children and have agreed with State actors and other partners to prioritise the needs and protection of children. Therefore it is of utmost importance to provide an access to quality education to all refugee school-age children and youth, both during their transition from their countries of origin to final destination, and in the countries in which they resettle. This also means that the non- formal education programmes which are being implemented in the Asylum and Reception Centres should be of high-quality and would enable children and youth to attain certain skills and knowledge, maintain studying habits and improve their sense of academic competence. This will consequently enable easier integration into educational systems of their final destination countries and broaden their educational and professional opportunities.

At the moment, the non-formal learning is provided in the Asylum/ Reception Centres through different educative, creative and recreational workshops and activities in the child friendly spaces. In order to support quality development of non-formal education programme it is needed to provide capacity building of front-line workers through trainings and tailor made on the job support.

Purpose of the assignment:

Purpose of the assignment is to ensure continuous support to quality development and provision of non-formal early childhood education and care programmes which are being implemented in the Asylum and Reception Centres.

Estimated start Date:

Estimated end Date:

28 April 2017

Number of days/months

12 December 2016

Estimated 45 days over given period.

No. of days will be paid on actual days worked.

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks

Deliverables

Timeframe

Develop and implement training for facilitators of ECEC programmes in child-friendly spaces in Asylum/ Reception Centres to implement quality toy-library programmes that will support early learning and parent's participation.

Training programmes.

Training reports with brief evaluation.

December 2016-

(3 days )

December 2016-

28 February 2017

(5 days)

Provide tailor- made and on the-job continuous support to ECEC facilitators through field visits to Asylum/ Reception Centres.

Monthly progress reports and final report on quality of non-formal education programmes and support provided to quality development

December 2016-

28 April 2017

( 30 days)

Provide professional on-line support to facilitators of ECEC activities.

December 2016-

28 April 2017

( 7 days)

Travel Required: Yes

Estimated number of days of travel: 30

Location of travel: Subotica, Sid, Banja Koviljaca, Bogovadja, Krnjaca, Sjenica, Tutin and Presevo and to potential other new locations of Asylum/ Reception Centres.

Workplace of Consultant:

Home based

Will the consultant need IT access, email?

No

Qualifications required, specialised knowledge, specialised skills and work experience required for this assignment:

· University degree in psychology, pedagogy, pre-school education or other related field.

· More than 5 years of professional experience in pre-school education.

· Experience in education of migrant and refugee children and other vulnerable groups.

· Experience in non-formal education including workshops organizing, project based learning, toy library and parenting programmes etc.

· Experience in capacity building of professionals working in ECEC.

· Demonstrated flexibility and creativity in planning and problem solving.

· Excellent oral and written Serbian language skills.

· Good English language skills.

· Command of either Arabic or Farsi would be an asset.

· Ability to work effectively with an ethnically diverse team in a sensitive environment.

· Sound judgement is required in follow-up on requests; high degree of accuracy is important.

· Ability to meet tight deadlines through excellent time management, organization and multi-tasking skills.

The application must include the following:

Important note: Incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. UNICEF is a non-smoking environment. UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities to apply.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organization. To apply, click on the following link http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/?job=501584