Advance Action on Recruitment of Consultants

Country/Borrower: Socialist Republic of Viet Nam

Title of Proposed Project: Lower Secondary Education for the Most Disadvantaged Regions Project

Brief Description of the Project:

The Project will improve access to more equitable learning opportunities for disadvantaged groups and will strengthen social and economic inclusion through universal lower secondary education. Specifically, the Project will
  1. improve access to lower secondary education,
  2. enhance the quality and relevance of secondary education,
  3. pilot-test and evaluate innovative approaches to give disadvantaged groups better access to education, and
  4. strengthen capacity to plan and manage targeted support for ethnic minorities and girls.

The Project will improve the net enrollment rate in lower secondary education in the 103 target districts from 76.4% in 2005 to 85% in 2013. It will achieve this improvement by
  1. building schools, classrooms, semi boarding facilities, and teacher housing in remote areas;
  2. providing in service and pre-service teacher training to meet the needs of ethnic minorities and girls;
  3. developing instructional materials including bilingual materials in the Vietnamese and ethnic minority languages, and materials for information and communication technology training and on the ethnic minority education management system;
  4. providing targeted scholarships; and
  5. pilot-testing innovative initiatives including school feeding programs and awareness-raising programs to promote secondary education among the hardest-to-reach groups.

Brief Description of Consulting Services and justification for advance action:

In order to implement the Project, consultants will be selected and engaged in accordance with ADB's Guidelines on the Use of Consultants (2007).

An international consulting firm in association with a national consulting firm will be recruited using the quality- and cost-based selection procedure. The firm will provide a total of 489 person-months of consulting services-74 international and 415 national. The international consultants will comprise experts in
  • project facilitation (3 person-months),
  • education planning and management (18; this consultant will also be the team leader),
  • procurement (14),
  • resettlement (1),
  • teacher training design and planning (16),
  • ICT (4),
  • gender and ethnic minority education planning (8),
  • monitoring and evaluation (6), and
  • scholarship policy and planning (4)
The national consultants will have expertise in
  • national civil works and procurement (48 person-months),
  • construction supervision (51),
  • resettlement (10),
  • school-based INSETT (24),
  • pro-poor PRESETT (48),
  • ethnic minority education management (48),
  • gender education management (24),
  • scholarship policy and management (48),
  • project facilitation and management (12),
  • education planning (26),
  • education management and administration (52),
  • ICT/EMIS management (12), and
  • monitoring and quality control (12)
Detailed terms of reference and selection criteria for the overseas training provider will be developed by National Project Implementation Unit (NPIU) with the assistance of international consultants during implementation.

To expedite implementation, the Ministry of Education and Training will take advance procurement action for the recruitment of individual consultants in the case of the international project facilitation adviser and the national project facilitation and management adviser. For smooth start-up, the project facilitation adviser will be selected and hired individually to help NPIU develop a solid implementation framework. The remaining services will be provided by an international firm.

The ADB project officer has advised the EA that advance action does not commit ADB to finance related expenditure under the Project or to finance the project.

Name and Address of Executing Agency:

Dr. Tran Van Thanh
Project Manager
Ministry of Education and Training
Hanoi, Viet Nam
Fax No. (84 4) 869 4085)
Date of advanced action recruitment approval: 01 August 2007