Recrutement d’un consultant local pour G.E.TEVT et HE analyse du sous-secteur technique et technologique, Soudan

THE REPUBLIC OF SUDAN

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST Capacity Building for Improved Quality of Education System and Skills Development (CBIQESSD) Project

Education Sector

Financing Agreement reference: 5900155008451

Project ID No.: P-SD-IA0-001

RECRUITMENT OF CONSULTING FIRM FORDEVELOPMENT OF A DIGITAL LEARNING PLATFOROM FOR THE NATIONAL TEACHERS TRAINING CENTER

1. The Government of Sudan received financing from the African Development Bank toward the cost of the Capacity Building for Improved Quality of Education System and Skills Development (CBIQESSD) Project, and intends to apply part of the agreed amount for this financing to payments under the contract for the development of a Digital Learning Platform for the National Teachers Training Center (NTTC) under the Ministry of General Education.

2. The services included under this assignment are to design a digital learning platform at the National Teachers Training Center (NTTC).

3. The CBIQESSD Project now invites eligible Consulting firms to indicate their interest in providing these services. Interested Consultants must provide information indicating that they are qualified to perform the services (brochures, description of similar assignments, experience in similar conditions, availability of appropriate skills among staff, etc.). Consultants may constitute joint-ventures to enhance their chances of qualification.

4. Eligibility criteria, establishment of the short-list and the selection procedure shall be in accordance with the African Development Bank’s Procurement Policy for Bank Group Funded Operations, dated October 2015which is available on the Bank’s website at https://www.afdb.org. 

5. Interested consultants may obtain further information at the address below during office hours Sunday to Thursday between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

6. Interested Consultants shall provide information on their qualifications and experience demonstrating their ability to undertake this assignment in English Language Perfectly.

7. Expressions of interest must be received at the address or e-mail given below no later than {Monday 16^th August 2021 at 2:00 P.M. local time}, specifically write “Expression of Interest for G.E.TEVT and HE technical and technological Sub-Sector Analysis: Local Consultant”.

8. Expressions of interest must be received at the address or e-mail given below no later than {Monday 16^th August 2021at 12:30 P.M. local time}, Sudan local time and mention “Expression of Interest for Development of the Digital Learning Platform”.

Mr. Khidir Adam Mohamed – Procurement Specialist 4th – Osman Digna Street Khartoum-Sudan

Tel: +249 91 773 7393

Email: [email protected]

THE REPUBLIC OF SUDAN AND THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

Capacity Building for Improved Quality of Education System and Skills Development

TERMS OF REFERENCE

1. Background

The Government of Sudan, through the Ministry of General Education is implementing the Sudan Capacity Building for Improved Quality of Education System and Skills Development (CBIQESSD) project funded by the African Development Bank Group (AfDB). The CBIQESSD Project is a UA15.3 million capacity building grant focused on enhancing institutional and human capacity of Sudan’s educational sector to further provide sufficient qualified workforce to support the social and economic development in the country. The project has three components: (i) Support to Capacity Building for Improved Quality of Education; (ii) Improving the Teaching and Training Conditions in the TVE Institutions; and (iii) Project Management. It was approved in May 2015 by the Bank’s Board of Directors and became effective in October 2015. The Project Components consist of the following:

The project is currently in the process of developing a digital learning platform, to be hosted at the National Teachers Training Centre (NTTC). On this platform, various educational courses and contents will be delivered to a diversified education workforce in Sudan. The main targeted beneficiaries are teachers and it is hoped that the platform will support their in-service as well as continuous professional development. Other beneficiaries will include education administrators, planners and other policy makers. Both existing and new courses and contents will be customised and uploaded on the platform to facilitate learning.

It is envisaged that the platform will be designed as a learning management system (LMS), that will facilitate and support participants to learn, virtually, with the support of online facilitators, especially as the world into the pos-COVID-19 era where technology will play a critical role in education delivery. The digital learning platform will allow interactive learning that is characterised by, among others, video animation, group/forum discussions, live sessions and submission of assignments and questions. The participants’ learning will be guided and monitored regularly by trained coordinators and facilitators, based at the NTTC, who communicate and provide feedback to individual participant and help individuals to complete the courses. The platform will be in such a manner that there will be a possibility to record and track participants’ learning progress. Another important feature of the platform is that, although it will be based at the NTTC, it will be linked to other related education institutions in the government. In other words, the platform will be made in such a way that it will be possible to scale it to multiple education agencies, to deliver professional learning and training courses with appropriate flexibility and security.

2. Objectives

At this point, the National Teachers Training Centre and the Project Implementation Unit of the CBIQESSD project are jointly looking for a Consultant firm to develop the digital learning platform that meets the above specification. The main objectives of the Consultant will be to:

• Develop a digital learning platform for the National Teachers Center, that is robust, secure and flexible to integrate different digital learning features ;
• Build the capacity of staff at the NTTC, in the use and basic maintenance of the digital learning platform including areas of content digitisation and on-line content delivery ;
• Lead in the customisation and automation of (existing and new) courses and contents to be uploaded on the digital learning platform ;
• Test the developed digital learning platform at module integration and load level including conducting and following all the necessary security test at applications.

3. Scope of Work

The scope of work can be categorized with the following tasks:

1. Hold sessions with platform end-users including NTTC staff, to understand their needs and aspirations about the anticipated digital platform, upon which the design for the new system should start. The sessions will allow the Consultant(s) to understand the education system in Sudan, especially as regards to the teacher management.
2. Undertake an assessment of existing digital learning systems, if any, within and outside the education sector in Sudan, that can help in the design of the current digital platform. Such systems can provide lessons that can be leveraged for the current system.
3. Design and develop the digital learning platform as per specification outlined in this TORs. In particular, the platform:

• should ensure access control, application level security and on-demand support to Helpdesk for uninterrupted LIVE service ;
• should support user registration in multiple ways including mobile number, Google ID, email, NID etc ;
• should be able to provide the ability to encrypt user IDs and passwords and impose minimum password lengths along with ability to reset passwords following a standard password strategy ;
• should have an e-communication module, which can be used for sending email and SMS to users ;
• should have a dashboard presenting dynamic data in reports in tabular and graphic presentations ;
• should have a robust multimedia content management system with support of video, audio, pdf, word, ppt etc ;
• should have an on-demand video streaming capability for conducting live sessions, a provision for two-way real-time audio and video chat support ;
• should have provision for periodical & instant Data Backup & Auto Archiving System ;
• should have the possibility to migrate all data, if any, from existing digital platforms in Sudan with appropriate data validation ;
• should have a dynamic content management system (CMS) with support of contents upload, tagging, searching and download features ;
• should have a provision to integrate payment gateway integration in the system for the paid courses ;
• should be cross browser compatible, responsive and graphically attractive ;
• The system must have a Certificate Verification mechanism with Block Chain Technology.

4. Offer trainings, aimed at building the capacity of staff at the NTTC in the use and basic maintenance of the digital learning platform including areas of content customisation and automation.

5. Customisation and upload selected (existing and new) courses and contents on the developed digital learning platform.

4. Technological Specifications 

• Need to use open source development platform ;
• PHP based platform with tool architecture like Bootstrap, framework like cakephp/ laravel/codeigniter can be used ;
• Android app should be developed in native android app. development language ;
• Technology and all related design/data will be open to client ;
• Industry standard secure development methodology should be followed, where common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross site scripting (XSS) etc. should be considered ;
• Vendor will undertake responsibility for input validation controls, Authorization/Authentication control and other security controls in place in both test and production environment of application  ;
• This digital learning platform is supposed to be hosted in a server, it might possibly be a (VPS), with adequate hardware resources and a clear business continuity plan (BCP). Stating the digital learning ; platform availability.

5. Tentative Project Timeline

Duration of this contract is 10 calendar months. To be effective from the date of signing the contract. This timeline will be subject to changes based on discussions between the client and the Consultant.

A more detailed time frame to be established with the vendor/consultant and members of the digital learning taskforce.)

6. Expected output/deliverables

• Inception report ;
• Development of digital learning platform ;
• Development of digital learning platform mobile App ;
• Software deployment on live server ;
• User manual ;
• Knowledge transfer through workshop/Training ; 
• Source code and database ;
• Project completion report including upcoming challenges if any ;
• Provision of 12 months support & maintenance services.

7. Consultant Qualification

For consultant firms bidding this work, the following qualifications are essential:

• Must submit valid Trade License, TIN, VAT & updated BASIS Certificate ;
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in Software development business in Africa especially in conflict and fragility states ;
• Experience in e-learning/similar type of work ;
• Experience in managing at least two web-based applications with large scale corporate sector/educational institutions ;
• Demonstrate management capacity (website link/brochures and other documents describing similar assignments, experience, availability of appropriate professional staff and experience among applicant’s staff, resources to carry out the assignment) ;
• Proven track record of a single project aging at least 2 years in the field of Web-based IT Solution/Portal Development & deployment that works on public cloud.

In addition to the above, the consulting firm will be required to:

• List (name, designation, years of experience, number of projects, expertise) of qualified personnel who will be engaged to perform the assigned task. A profile and CV of each of them should be provided as part of the application ;
• Present specialists from essential fields (software Engineering, education and skills development, system Analysis etc.) required of the task. At the minimum, one of the specialists should be from Sudan.