Consultancy: Assistive Technology Consultant

**Job no**: 548865
**Contract type**: Consultancy
**Duty Station**: Geneva
**Level**: Consultancy
**Location**: Switzerland
**Categories**: Education

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

**For every child, **_Hope_**

**Background**
Learning is an essential human activity, and every child has the right to education and learning. Yet in Europe and Central Asia, a large number of children and adolescents—and disproportionately more poor and vulnerable children including children with disabilities—are out of school and, even when they are in school, do not acquire the foundational skills necessary to thrive. The learning poverty is cumulative across children’s life course, driving inequality in access to education, acquisition of knowledge and skills, transition to the labor market, and well-being. The existing challenges in education were exacerbated by nationwide school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, including the right to education. UNICEF ECARO supports 22 country offices (COs) and their government counterparts in strengthening the national and regional capacity to achieve inclusive, quality education and learning for all, with a focus on the most marginalized children, under the framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In particular, ECARO supports education system strengthening by providing strategic guidance and technical assistance in several intervention areas.

Under the key intervention area 3 (inclusive education policy and practice), ECARO supports national and regional initiatives to build resilient, inclusive education system in which all groups of children enjoy quality learning in inclusive environment. ECARO applies system strengthening approach to make a change in teaching and learning practice on the ground in a sustainable manner, which includes support for legislative reform, policy development, data management, needs assessment, digital technologies, public-private partnerships, teacher training, and community engagement, among others. Under key intervention area 2 (strengthen digital learning ecosystems with an equity focus), ECARO leads the regional LearnIn initiative and supports national initiatives to facilitate the digital transition by supporting national digital learning policies, strategies and plans; to strengthen the enabling environment for inclusive digital learning ecosystems and to develop national digital learning platforms (including national instances of the Learning Passport); to identify and bridge gaps in connectivity, device access, and quality digital learning content; and to improve teacher professional development and teachers’ competencies for inclusive digitally-supported pedagogy. In the face of the recurrent waves of COVID-19 spread and continued disruption of learning, which hit the most marginalized children hardest, there have been urgent needs for significantly strengthening the focus on inclusion and equity in digital learning and the process of learning recovery.

The European Union Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) has provided generous funding to UNICEF to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of children and parents in the Western Balkans and Turkey. UNICEF’s work on digital learning through LearnIn is being leveraged to help support these efforts to bridge learning gaps and address the inequality that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The purpose of this assignment is to work closely with the Education section in UNICEF ECARO with a focus on the Western Balkan countries participating in this project to accelerate the effective use of Assistive Technology to promote inclusive practice at school.

**How can you make a difference?**

**Scope of Work**
- Develop, a regional guidance for teachers on the use of Assistive Technology for multiple learning delivery modes, including in-person, distance and hybrid, and for different modalities, including face-to-face, digital learning and blended learning.
- Pilot the regional guidance in at least 3 countries in the region, one of which must be a country in the Western Balkans that is an Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA) beneficiary country participating in the education component of the DG NEAR-funded project.
- Revise the guidance based on the results of the pilot and finalize it, including both a print version and a video tutorial on using the guidance.
- Design and host a launch and capacity-strengthening event based on the guidance, in collaboration with Regional Office Education section colleagues, Country Office