Higher Education Strategy Expert Consultant

About the Position

Dexis Professional Services is currently recruiting for a Higher Education Strategy Expert consultant under the Education Support Initiative II (ESI II) Institutional Support Contract (ISC). The consultant will work remotely for a period from on or around December 1, 2024 through October 31, 2025. The expected level of effort for this consultancy is 960 hours (120 days).

USAID’s Agency-wide Higher Education Learning Agenda (HELA) was released in August 2020 amidst a rapidly changing global landscape. A vibrant higher education stakeholder community emerged from the extensive consultations and engagement that surrounded its creation, and that momentum grew into the Higher Education Learning Network (HELN) which has grown to 3600 members from across the globe. Through the HELN, USAID convenes its implementing partners, other donors, higher education practitioners, faculty and staff from higher education institutions (HEIs), government officials, academics, researchers, students, government officials, NGOs, and other stakeholders to uncover and improve the ways higher education is uniquely positioned to support sustainable development across sectors. The HELA’s learning questions have provided a springboard for all of HELN’s work including Evidence Summits, Fail Fests, and other work conducted by the HELN and guided the Center for Education’s (IPI/EDU) higher education work over the past four years.  

While the community has surfaced and generated a large volume of evidence, what exactly have we learned and where should USAID’s higher education work go next? USAID is the largest bi-lateral donor in non-scholarship development assistance to higher education and could be doing more to set a strategic direction for the sector. The purpose of this SOW is to support internal and external discussions about what Missions, OUs, and USAID partners need to program HE more effectively and efficiently. How can USAID best leverage its convening power to give the sector direction while also providing just-in-time and demand-driven support? What are the most effective ways for the Center for Education’s higher education SMEs to support USAID Missions, implementing partners and the wider higher education community? What outcomes would it be helpful to measure in higher education? This STTA aims to answer these questions while also helping to formalize and clarify connections between key streams of higher education work, including the HELN, the HELA, the Higher Education Program Framework, USAID’s Education Policy, our work with BE2 Higher Education SIG and more.  

To complete this task the Higher Education Strategy Expert will need to develop a deep and holistic understanding of USAID’s higher education portfolio (past and present) so they can help offer recommendations for a strategic direction for the team and its future work. This will involve holding key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) with individuals inside and outside of USAID to understand their perceptions, priorities, and needs. This will require collaboration with HELN and other USAID-run learning networks to understand how they function as an ecosystem and where opportunities exist to improve them. This task will also require mapping key USAID documents to identify entry points for higher education and recommendations for how the learning networks and mission programming can feed into these touch points to strategically advance USAID’s work in higher education.

Responsibilities

• Review relevant background documents related to USAID’s higher education portfolio, including the HELA, the Higher Education Program Framework, USAID’s Education Policy, USAID Higher Education: A Retrospective 1960-2020, and key policy documents from other OUs to identify where they overlap and how they can be leveraged to support a strategy for higher education at USAID. 

• Conduct KIIs and FGDs with members of HELN, the internal Higher Education Working Group, and the BE2 Higher Education SIG to understand what members from each group gain from membership, what they hope to gain going forward, and what they see as current and emerging priorities for the sector. 

• Conduct KIIs and FGDs with Missions with higher education programming to understand 1) how the Center for Education can best support them, 2) what they see as current and emerging trends impacting their programming, and 3) what outcomes would be most useful to measure in their programming. 

• Produce recommendations related to 1) the relevance of the existing HELA for the sector and USAID’s priorities, 2) the ecosystem of learning networks and how they can/should meet the needs of stakeholders, and 3) how those two streams (the HELA and HELN) can work together to strategically advance USAID’s higher education programming. Writing should adhere to the USAID Style Guide. 

• Collaborate with HELN and the higher education SMEs to reimagine the HELN network, including recommendations for sustainable funding and leadership models. This will be informed from initial findings from KIIs and FGDs with members of the HELN.

• Map the connections uncovered through the interviews and document review to produce an internal strategy to guide the work of the higher education team. 

• Participate in regular check-ins with USAID to discuss progress and troubleshoot challenges. Collaborate closely with the higher education SMEs.

Qualifications 

• Experienced international higher education professional and researcher with a graduate degree in social science or a related field preferred.  

• A Bachelor’s and six years or Master’s and five years of prior experience working on international higher education, preferably with USAID funded activities.

• Experience in the design, implementation, management and/or evaluation of higher education activities. 

• Experience developing and delivering interview protocols. 

• Experience writing reports and strategic documents. 

• Excellent writing and editing skills. 

• Experience synthesizing complex research for general audiences. 

• Ability to use Microsoft Office and Google Suite products required.