Participant Selection and Recruitment

The survey will be conducted in school communities in the 17 districts of the 4 regions in the USAID Ghana’s Zone of Influence (ZOI). The Regions and Districts can be found in Section 4 above. However, the list of schools and communities will be shared during the post-award conference with the consultant/consultancy group/firm to aid actual sampling of the communities. The selection of participants should ensure gender balance and fair representation of minority groups where identified.

Approvals

The consultant/consultancy group/firm provide the documentation required for an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval prior to the onset of data collection. The documentation will include:

• Summary of the methodology
• Tools, including xls forms and reader-friendly PDF format
• Summary of the sample
• Presentation to the IRB
• Permission letter from GES and other relevant bodies to conduct the survey.

The successful consultant will liaise with the relevant authorities to obtain approvals for the study.

Data collection and quality assurance

The consultant/consultancy group/firm be responsible for recruiting, vetting, and training enumerators and field supervisors to conduct the study. The data collection team is expected to be gender-balanced and fluent in English and the local languages spoken in the assessed locations (i.e. Dagaare, Mampruli, Kusaal, Waali, Dagbani, Sisaala). CARE will require a minimum of 3 days of training and one day of field practice for this assignment. Prior to deployment for data collection, all field supervisors and enumerators must pass a post-test assessing their knowledge of the data collection protocol and quality assurance requirements. The consultant/consultancy group/firm be responsible for the design and administration of the post-test, working in collaboration with CARE’s MEAL Director. 

The training of enumerators is expected to include, at a minimum:

• An overview of the activity and its evaluation methodology
• Informed consent and confidentiality
• GESI-responsive practices in data collection, including minimum standards and potential scenarios
• Research ethics and safeguarding practices
• Sampling procedures
• An overview of each tool
• Data quality assurance procedures and quality checklists
• Mock practices with each tool
• Qualitative data collection practices – facilitation, inclusiveness, probing
• Field practices with each tool
• Secure data storage and transfer
• Common troubleshooting
• Daily reporting and oversight

The consultant/consultancy group/firm be required to:

• Conduct spot-checks with data collection teams and supervisors.
• Review uploaded datasets on a regular basis to assess enumerator and supervisor performance and spot errors in a timely manner.
• Provide weekly data collection reports to CARE.
• Provide interim datasets to CARE’s Director of Research (following a safe transfer protocol established by CARE) to enable shadow verification of data quality.
• Clean and validate datasets prior to data analysis.

The consultant/consultancy group/firm be responsible for all travel and logistics associated with conducting the public satisfaction survey.

Safeguarding, Inclusion, and Research Ethics

CARE has a zero-tolerance policy for any form of sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse. The selected consultant/consultancy group/firm and all supervisors and enumerators will be required to participate in a safeguarding training provided by CARE and to sign CARE’s Safeguarding Policy. CARE will inform school communities of our safeguarding policy and reporting mechanisms prior to data collection. Any reports of safeguarding policy violations will be investigated confidentially and reported to local authorities as per local law. If any safeguarding incidents are witnessed or reported to supervisors and/or enumerators during data collection, those should be reported to CARE immediately during CARE’s hotline +233 24403340699 and/or CARE’s global Ethics point online reporting system.

Enumerators will be required to ask for informed consent of all respondents. Enumerators will also inform respondents of their right to leave the interview at any time or refuse participation without fear of reprisal.  

The consultant/consultancy group/firm is responsible for ensuring that enumerators and supervisors adhere to confidentiality throughout the survey. The data collection team will not be allowed to take photographs or videos of participants, regardless of the circumstances. All data collected will be transferred and stored safely using encrypted systems. Only the main data analyst at the evaluation company and CARE’s Director of Research will have access to non-anonymized datasets.

CARE will train enumerators and supervisors on its Policy on Fraud and Corruption. CARE has zero-tolerance for data fraud. The consultant/consultancy group/firm      is required to verify potential instances of fraud. CARE will spot-check data collection and verify trends in uploaded datasets to identify potential cases of false surveys/ assessments, impossible responses, and inconsistencies. 

CARE reserves the right to terminate this contract at any time, without prior notice, in case of policy violations.

Reporting 

The consultant/consultancy group/firm propose an outline of the study and analysis framework to CARE as part of the application package. The analysis framework should include, at a minimum: system, school, and community profiles; perceptions related to teacher quality and commitment, student and teacher attendance, learner literacy and numeracy skills, supply and state of school infrastructure, school-community engagements, learner assessment and evaluation (homework, end-of-term examinations, etc.), work of education officials and administrators (District Directors, SISOs, headteachers, etc.), gender and social norms, and regression analyses identifying factors contributing to learning and attendance; and baseline values pending midline and endline for trend analysis. The analysis framework should contribute to the Activity’s learning agenda and adaptive management approaches.

Once finalizing the initial analysis, the consultant/consultancy group/firm will conduct an interpretation workshop, presenting the findings to USAID, MOE, Activity representatives, and representatives from the ZOI’s districts and schools. The recommendations from the interpretation workshop will inform the final analysis. The consultant/consultancy group/firm prepare a draft report for USAID, MOE, and CARE’s review and feedback. The draft report should follow USAID standards. Upon receiving the feedback, the consultant/consultancy group/firm will finalize the report and prepare a reader-friendly summary of the findings for external dissemination.

Learning

The consultant/consultancy group/firm present the public satisfaction results and recommendations to the Project Steering Committee; the Education Sector Working Group; and the USAID/SAGES Systems Strengthening Activity technical team. The Activity technical team will use the findings and recommendations to (i) inform adaptations to the design and (ii) prepare learning products for external dissemination with regional and district education directorates, national, regional, and global audiences. The Activity will upload the report and anonymized datasets to USAID’s Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC). The project will also upload the report to the CARE Evaluations website.

Key Deliverables

The consultant/consultancy group/firm will provide the following deliverables as a result of this contract:

Deliverable set I – Study setup

1. Inception report containing an outline of the methodology; data collection tools; school-community sample; data collection plan; quality assurance protocols; detailed analysis framework; set of training materials, including agenda, presentations, and pre-and post-tests.
2. Data collection training report.
3. Pilot test report.
4. Ethical clearance certificat

Deliverable set II – Data collection products

1. Data collection weekly reports and completion reports.
2. Raw quantitative datasets with complete codebooks (in SPSS or STATA files).
3. Cleaned quantitative datasets with complete codebooks and Do-files (in SPSS or STATA files).
4. Qualitative recordings in electronic format.
5. Complete transcription and translation of qualitative files.

Deliverable set III – Reporting

1. Draft presentation of findings for interpretation workshop
2. Draft public satisfaction report
3. Final public satisfaction report
4. Reader-friendly summary of public satisfaction findings
5. Public satisfaction Policy Brief (maximum of two pages)
6. Public satisfaction report infographics (one page)

Timeline

As part of the application package, potential consultants are required to complete a Gantt chart including the following tasks and the proposed timeline (see illustrative table below). The draft public satisfaction survey report should be submitted no later than midnight on September 6, 2024.