Middle-level Consultant on Education

JOB DETAILS Type of contract : Consultant Contract Level : Level 2 - Middle Hiring Unit : Education Sector (ED) Duty Station : Paris Work location : Remote Duration of contract : 3 months Hiring open to : External candidates Application deadline (Midnight UTC+1 Time) : 17/11/2026 UNESCO Core Values: Commitment to the Organization, Integrity, Respect for Diversity, Professionalism OVERVIEW BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT Exclusion across education trajectories Despite major expansion of education worldwide, an estimated 273 million children and youth of primary and secondary school age remain out of school, and many more enrolled learners are at risk of leaving before completion. Educational exclusion is not a single event: learners may never enter education, enter late, disengage progressively, leave before completion, be excluded at critical transition points, or be unable to find an appropriate pathway back. The challenge starts early and does not stop at secondary school. While higher education enrolment has grown rapidly to 269 million students with a gross enrolment ratio of 44% in 2024, yet the global gross graduation ratio for bachelor’s and master’s programmes was 27%, and available evidence points to significant attrition in many systems. Systematic and internationally comparable data on higher education dropout remain limited. Understanding exclusion therefore requires following learner trajectories, from early learning to tertiary education, rather than treating being “out of school” as a single status. Long Description Profiles, barriers and the architecture of systems Exclusion results from the interaction between learner profiles that face disproportionate risks and the barriers that prevent learners from entering, remaining in, progressing through or completing education. Risks are unevenly distributed across children affected by poverty, disability, gender inequality, displacement, ethnicity or language, rural isolation, and conflict or climate vulnerability, and they compound through intersectionality. The barriers can be read as push factors (poor quality or relevance of learning, unsafe or discriminatory school environments, inaccessible schools, weak support for learners at risk), pull factors (poverty and education-related costs, child labour and care responsibilities, social norms, migration, displacement, conflict- or climate-related disruption) and systemic factors (underinvestment, regional and socioeconomic inequalities, legal and administrative restrictions, weak governance and planning, exclusionary rules on admission, progression or recognition of learning). These are points of intervention, not exclusive causes: a learner may face poverty, meet an inaccessible school, and live in a system too weak to respond. The architecture of education systems matters in itself. High-stakes examinations, early tracking, restrictive admission rules, limited articulation between academic and vocational routes, and the absence of viable routes for re-entry can all amplify exclusion at critical transition points. ASSIGNMENTS Under the overall authority of the Director of the Division for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems (ED/PLS), and the direct supervision of a senior programme officer within the Section of Education Policy (ED/PLS/EDP-K12), the consultant will carry out the following tasks: • Literature review on data systems for OOSCY, dropout and learner pathways • Review existing approaches and tools, drawing heavily on the OOSCI documents (framework, 2023 Operational Manual, country reports, synthesis reports and evaluations) and on work by UIS, UNICEF, UNESCO and others on administrative data, household surveys, learner identifiers, tracking across institutions, early warning, and the distinction between dropout and transfer. • Examine how these approaches work, and could work, beyond basic and secondary education: early childhood care and education (ECCE), TVET and higher education (including the EMIS-HEMIS interface), and at transitions between levels and routes back into education. • Identify the capacities and enabling conditions of systems able to detect and respond (learner-level longitudinal data, disaggregation, interoperability, governance and data protection, use of information for action) and document evidence gaps. • Country case studies • Prepare 6 case studies on the capacity of national data systems to track out-of-school children, dropout and learner pathways, using a common template, mainly through desk review and remote interviews with ministry staff and partners. • Work with the countries identified by UNESCO in coordination with the other ED/PLS teams on this programme (rights-based approach, learning and engagement, pathways and assessment, TVET, higher education, teachers, lifelong learning), so that each case also serves their thematic work. Selection criteria include existing OOSCI or comparable studies, regional and income diversity, stable and crisis contexts, and varied data-system maturity. • Produce a cross-case synthesis of capacities, gaps and lessons. • Development of the EMIS-PATT OOSCY and learning pathways module • Map the OOSCI dimensions and the review findings onto the EMIS-PATT structure and agree with the EMIS-PATT team how the module plugs into the wider assessment. • Define the capacities assessed: identifying non-enrolment; monitoring attendance and prolonged absence; identifying dropout risk for early action; following learners across institutions, levels and pathways; distinguishing dropout from transfer or migration; identifying populations missed by administrative systems; and supporting outreach, re-entry and follow-up. Cover the enabling conditions, early-warning systems as an institutional question, and all levels from ECCE to higher education. • Produce the self-assessment matrix with scoring and maturity logic, a facilitation guide, a template for the improvement roadmap and a short user guide, keeping hooks for screening of learning difficulties and for an EMIS-HEMIS interface. • Validate the drafts with the ED/PLS teams. CONTRACT DURATION The consultancy is expected to last about 3 months (approximately 60 working days) from November 2026 to end of January 2027. The work is home-based. The specified dates for the deliverables indicated below are subject to adjustment based on content of the consultant offer. The contractor should ensure that all visibility materials are produced in line with UNESCO's branding guidelines. Please refer to the UNESCO Style Manual for citation style, terminology and spelling, abbreviations, references, etc. In line with UNESCO's overall gender mainstreaming strategy, the contractor is expected to integrate a gender perspective in all activities and apply gender analysis and mainstreaming concepts whenever feasible. Long Description DELIVERABLES • Inception report Work plan, review framework and search strategy, case study template, annotated outline of the module By week 1 • Case study countries Selection criteria and list of countries validated with UNESCO and the other ED/PLS teams By week 2 • Draft literature review Review covering ECCE, basic and secondary education, TVET and higher education By week 6 • Country case studies 6 case studies based on the common template By week 9 • Final literature review Revised review with cross-case synthesis of capacities, gaps and lessons By week 10 • Draft EMIS-PATT OOSCY and learning pathways module Draft self-assessment matrix, with scoring and maturity logic By week 10 • Final EMIS-PATT OOSCY and learning pathways module Final self-assessment matrix, facilitation guide and roadmap template, with a proposal for piloting in two countries as a follow-up By week 12 • Note on inputs to the OOSC toolkit Short note on toolkit components, and briefing to the ED/PLS teams By week 12 All documents produced in the context of the consultancy will be the property of U