Myanmar: Call for Consultancy: Translation, Copyediting and Proofreading

Strengthening Pre-service Teacher Education in Myanmar (STEM)

Call for Consultancy

Translation, Copyediting and Proofreading of

Myanmar Pre-service Teacher Education

Year 1 Student Teacher Textbooks, Teacher Educator Guides and Handbooks

I.Background

UNESCO, in partnership with the Ministry of Education (MoE), is working to strengthen pre-service teacher education in Myanmar. The Strengthening Pre-service Teacher Education in Myanmar (STEM) project addresses four fundamentally important aspects of pre-service teacher education: to formulate a policy framework of pre-service teacher education and identify standards for quality assurance; to improve a system of pre-service teacher training institutions - Education Colleges (ECs) by restructuring and redesigning courses of teacher education and creating good networks to accumulate and share knowledge and experiences of all ECs; to develop institutional/management and human resource capacities of ECs; and to mainstream inclusion and equity issues in teacher education. The project is improving teacher education in the area of governance, policy development around teacher education, and review of the learning resources and development of curriculum, building capacity of staff in management and teaching.

Under the STEM project, UNESCO is producing student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks for Year 1 of the new pre-service teacher education degree programme, to be implemented in 25 Education Colleges across states and regions in Myanmar. These publications are to support training potential basic education teachers to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes to teach primary school curriculum.

The draft student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks for Year 1 of the new pre-service teacher education degree have been developed. The subjects/ learning areas of the draft student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks are:

1. Myanmar,

2. English,

3. Mathematics,

4. Social Studies (including topics relating to Geography and History),

5. Science,

6. Information and Communication Technology,

7. Physical Education,

8. Art,

9. Life Skills,

10. Morality and Civics,

11. Local Curriculum (including topics relating to ethnic language and culture, agriculture, career and home management skills),

12. Educational Studies,

13. Practicum, and

14. Reflective Practice and Essential Skills.

The Myanmar and English language versions of these drafts are being revised several times as part of a comprehensive national consultation process during 2018-2019 with UNESCO, curriculum experts and the Ministry of Education assigned curriculum core team members.

II.Purpose

Based on the draft Myanmar and English language versions of Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks developed so far, UNESCO is recruiting individual consultants or institutions or both to conduct (a) translation of revised content to incorporate comments received through the consultation process, (b) copyediting and (c) proofreading of these publications of one or more of the subjects/ learning areas listed above.

III.Tasks and responsibilities

Under the overall authority of UNESCO Myanmar Head of Project Office, the individual consultants or institutions will work closely with the UNESCO STEM project team in Myanmar and perform the following tasks for one or more of the subjects/ learning areas:

a. provide accurate and high quality translation of the revised content of the draft Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks to incorporate comments received through the consultation process. The majority of the revised content is made in the English draft through the consultation process. Corresponding revisions are needed to be made by the individual consultants or institutions on the Myanmar draft. As for the Myanmar subject, some of the translation will need to be made from Myanmar to English;

b. copyedit the draft Myanmar and English language versions of Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks to improve accuracy, readability and consistency of the text before the layout design and illustrations are applied to the draft, based on the Guidelines for Development of Education College Student Teacher Textbooks and Teacher Educator Guides for 4-Year Degree; and

c. proofread the Myanmar and English language versions of Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks after the layout design and illustrations are applied to the draft.

IV.Payment

1. Payment will be made based on actual number of pages translated, copyedited and proofread.

2. The fee for the translation, copyediting and proofreading of the documents will be authorized for payment upon the approval of the UNESCO specialists who will determine if the translation, copyediting and proofreading meet the required quality standard.

3. Additional payment will not be made for any corrections or re-translations required by UNESCO in order for the translation to meet the required quality standard as determined by UNESCO. UNESCO requests for corrections to the original translation or for re-translation for parts of the original document are to be re-submitted by the contractor for approval within an additional five days of the requests.

4. Any possible bank charges of the contractor by the intermediate bank(s) and/or the contractor’s bank shall be borne by the contractor and charged within the amount of the contract.

5. UNESCO reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if the quality of the work is unsatisfactory and/or if they are not delivered on time to the required standard of quality.

V.Guiding principles

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.

VI.Duration of assignment

The contractor will work independently and the contract is valid from 1 February 2019 to 30 September 2019.

VII.Required skills and experience

The contractor is required to have the following skills and experience:

· Demonstrated experience in translation of English language documents into Myanmar language, and translation of Myanmar language documents into English language;

· Familiarity with key terms used in education, with preference for key terms used in specific subjects/ learning areas;

· Experience typing in Zawgyi font for Myanmar language;

· Proficiency to communicate via email and phone in both English and Myanmar language;

· Paying attention to details; and

· Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines.

VIII.Deliverables

The deliverables are required to be submitted in hardcopy and/or by email to UNESCO in the editable format, such as Microsoft Word, as requested by UNESCO:

1. 1^st draft translation of the revised content of the draft Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks as indicated in III.a. above by 28 February 2019;

2. 2^nd draft translation of the revised content of the draft Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks as indicated in III.a. above by 30 April 2019;

3. copyedited draft Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks as indicated in III.b. above by 31 May 2019;

4. proofread 1^st draft Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks after the layout design and illustrations are applied to the draft as indicated in III.c. above by 26 July 2019; and

5. proofread 2^nd draft Year 1 student teacher textbooks, teacher educator guides and handbooks after the layout design and illustrations are applied to the draft as indicated in III.c. above by 30 September 2019.

The exact dates for submission of each of the above deliverables are subject to changes and to be communicated between UNESCO and the contractor, depending on the subjects/ learning areas that the contractor is responsible for.

Upon submission to and approval by UNESCO of the following work :Deliverables 1-5

Percentage of the payment instalment of the total contract:100% (See IV above for remarks)

Latest date for submission: 30 September 2019

IX.Application

Interested individual consultants or institutions are invited to submit an application to this consultancy to Ko Minn Nay Han of UNESCO Myanmar Project Office at mn.han@unesco.org as soon as possible and no later than 21 January 2019. In the email, please include:

1. CV(s) clearly showing prior experience in translating, copyediting and/or proofreading documents between English and Myanmar languages, preferably with publishing companies which specialize in textbook, training manual and educational material development;

2. a quote of the expected consultancy rate in USD and an estimate of the number of pages to be translated/copyedited/proofread per day using the following format:

Task

Expected rate per page
(in USD)

Estimated number of pages to be able to complete per day

Translation

Copyediting

Proofreading

1. an indication of AT LEAST TWO subjects/ learning areas that you are interested in translation, copyediting and proofreading. You may indicate your preference among these subjects/ learning areas by ranking from the most preferred to the least preferred (See I. above for the list of all 14 subjects/ learning areas); and

2. a sample of a document translated from English to Myanmar language in PDF format, with preference for an education-related document.

It should be noted that all files together should not exceed 10 MB.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.