There is a job opening at the World Bank’s education team working on impact evaluation. The person should have very strong quantitative analysis skills, be familiar with randomized eval, and background in economics, stats, math, econometrics, etc.
1. Background
The Royal Government of the Netherlands established the Dutch Basic Education Support Program (DBESP), which has the overall goal of carrying out the necessary technical analyses using global knowledge and international best practices to help the Ministry of National Education (MONE) reach the objectives of its Medium-term Strategic Plan (RENSTRA) and successfully implement policies under the December 2005 Teacher Law.
One component under the DBESP is Monitoring and Evaluation (component 4). The purpose of this component is to improve the effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation systems for MONE’s education programs.
There are several ambitious impact evaluation initiatives underway related to this component. These include:
- Determining the impact of an early childhood development project (ECED). The evaluation applies a randomized evaluation design using the phase in of the program, and a matched control from villages outside of the project areas.
- Determining the impact of doubling teacher salaries (as part of the Government certification program) and teacher training on student outcomes that part of BERMUTU project.
- Responding to intermittent Government of Indonesia requests related research in education policy. Recent topics include: the optimal mix between vocation and general training, the appropriateness of teacher salaries in the local labor markets, options to increase incentives for performance for teachers.
In order to ensure that the policy research mentioned above is executed efficiently and meets, high quality standards, the World Bank seeks a research analyst with experience analysing data, designing and fielding surveys in Indonesia, and working with survey firms and Government partners to execute research.
2. Purpose of the Consultancy
Overall, the consultant will participate in studies related to education policies and projects, mainly providing technical inputs into the design and implementation of the ECED and BERMUTU impact evaluations, analysing data from these studies, and producing policy documents for Government, policy and research audiences.
3. Scope of work
The consultant will assume the following responsibilities
1. Undertake, with the guidance of other education team members, primarily research on education policy, outcomes and projects. This includes conducting literature review, analyze existing (statistical) information, and helping to design studies on a range of issues relating to education in Indonesia.
2. Draft survey instruments and survey manuals
3. Provide socialization to Government officials about impact evaluation
4. Clean and manage data sets
5. Provide technical inputs into terms of reference and budgets, mainly for survey work
6. Oversee and provide quality control of survey work, including observing school-based interviews, field supervision, data entry. Make recommendations on quality improvements to training and fieldwork
7. Present research findings to Government
8. Regularly communicate with Government officials and other donors in the education sector to ensure wide dissemination and avoid overlap in education sector research.
Outputs
Relevant data sets prepared ready for statistical analysis
- Statistical tables or analysis results
- Summaries on data processing/manipulation procedures and statistical results
- Input into analytic reports (including data analysis and literature review) discussing survey findings
- Draft survey instruments, such as those for the Bermutu school surveys
- Presentations for Government or other audiences about survey findings or study plans
- Periodic reports (weekly, monthly, etc, as specified by the supervisors) on quality of survey training and/or fieldwork, including suggestions for improvement of quality. Consultant may be asked to produce presentations or training materials related to recommended improvements.
Selection Criteria
- Minimum of M.A. in Economics or related subjects with minimum 2 years of relevant working experience, or B.A. in Economics or related subjects with more than 5 years of relevant experience
- Excellent knowledge of econometrics and statistical analysis techniques and related principles underlying World Bank’s economic work
- Excellent data skills and familiarity with statistical methods and standard econometric software packages, especially STATA
- Experience in using various large scale quantitative survey data
- Excellent knowledge of data collection, principal sources and retrieval systems of economic and social development survey data
- Ability to interpret and present statistical information
- Excellent written and spoken communication skills in Indonesian and English
- An excellent team worker but can also work independently
Length of Assignment
This is a full-time position initially for a period of 150 days under a short term consultant contract, through June 2010. If performance is satisfactory, it is expected the position will extended under an “extended term consultant” contract which is full-time and has duration of a maximum of two years. The work will require travel to the field in Indonesia to oversee survey operations in the field.
Reporting
The consultant will be report on a daily basis to Amanda Beatty (abeatty@worldbank.org).
Interested candidates should write to Rima Artha (rartha@worldbank.org) and Amanda Beatty (abeatty@worldbank.org). Position will be filled as soon as possible.
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