Evaluation Consultant: Teacher Training Impact Assessment

About the project

The British Council has worked in partnership with NDB since June 2012, supporting the organisation’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objective in Education through the Certificate in Secondary English Language Teaching - an English for Teaching improvement programme. This was subsequently revised and improved through two further partnerships in 2013/2014 and 2014/2015. 

The main purpose of the programme is to support NDB’s initiative in improving the language and teaching skills of English language teachers in Sri Lanka through an enhanced teacher training and delivery method.  By doing this, as well as supporting teachers to develop up-to-date learner-centred and activity-based methodology, pupils benefit from having better trained English teachers, thus improving their English skills and employability.  

Last year, a smaller version of the project was run and we now wish to carry out an impact evaluation of the programme between 2014 to 2016 before an improved programme is launched in 2017.

Objectives 

The project was designed to achieve the following broad objectives. Teachers will:

1. be more confident in using English in the classroom
2. create more opportunities for students to interact in English with each other in the classroom within the existing curriculum
3. use a more learner-centred and activity-based methodology in the classroom
4. have a clearer understanding of the teaching and learning process
5. improve their English language level  (from A2 to B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR)).

About the role

We are seeking a consultant to carry out an impact evaluation for the project targeting the 15 Regional English Support Centres (RESCs), the teacher educators and their delivery methods and practices, as well as the teachers who attended the training. 

The consultant’s main tasks will include the following:

1. review of project documentation
2. interviews with project staff at British Council  
3. visits to three of the participating RESCs. In each visit the RESC coordinator will be interviewed and four schools visited. In each school visit, the principal or other member of school administration will be interviewed, and a participating teacher observed and interviewed.
4. administration of a questionnaire to the 300 trained teachers from the 15 participating RESCs, collated and analysed
5. produce a final written report which will be used as the basis for an improved programme for teacher training and delivery methods in 2017.

Timeline

In-country from 21 to 25 November 2016. 21 November will be a half day.

A half day will be allocated by the successful applicant for writing the report (home-based), due by 2 December. All expenses will be covered and the flat rate for the five days is £1,500. 

Qualifications and experience required

Essential 

• post-graduate qualification in relevant subject (ELT/Linguistics and/or Education and/or Teacher Education)
• experience in analysing and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data to produce high quality impact reports
• experience in evaluating English language teacher training programmes.

Desirable

• education sector experience in South Asia 
• experience in the challenges relating to improving teacher education. 

Applications should include:

• a covering letter tailored to the above requirements
• a CV
• a proposal of maximum 1000 words indicating the approach to this partnership.

Please send the above to sharon.martinesz@britishcouncil.org with the title ‘NDB Project Consultant’ by 1 November 2016.

Please note, we can only respond to successful applicants and only within five working days of the application deadline.