Technical Assistance Service for the Implementation of upper secondary school reform programme “Learning2gether2" in Ukraine

The Unit for Eastern Europe (hereinafter referred to as “Contracting Authority”) calls for this Invitation to Tender (ITT) with a purpose of requesting tenders on Technical Assistance service for the Implementation of the project Learning2gether2 (project code 86501404). Ukraine has requested Finland’s support to education sector due to the high quality of the Finnish educational system and the value added Finland could contribute to the New Ukrainian School reform. Learning2gether2 is based on agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of Finland and will be implemented as a bilateral cooperation programme. The Learning2gether2 programme will be implemented in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. The Learning2gether2 programme continues Finland’s support to implementation of the New Ukrainian School (NUS) reform, focusing on the Academic Stream in the Upper Secondary School (USS) (Grades 11-12) with a budget of up to EUR 20 million over four years. The estimated value of the Technical assistance budget is 6,885,788 euros (including reimbursable costs, VAT excluded) + an option of 3,500,000 euros. The option includes technical assistance fees and reimbursable costs. Duration of the contract will be four years with an option period of two years. Other funds to be channeled through the international service provider according to the Programme Document are operational costs of 12,094,296 euros and contingency of 1,019,916 euros. The total amount of channeled funds is therefore 20,000,000 euros. Programme Document includes a more detailed description of the object of the contract. Information on the programme can be found in the annexes.

The contract will be awarded through an open procedure. The procurement will take place in compliance with the Act on Public Contracts and Concession Contracts (1397/2016). The contract concerns a service procurement exceeding EU threshold which is based on a development cooperation agreement between the contracting authority and the partner country (on grounds 8 § paragraph 2 of the Act on Public Contracts and Concession Contracts, the procurement will be conducted through National Procedures). The processing of Tenders will progress in the following steps: 1. Publishing the call for tenders 2. Opening of tenders 3. Evaluation of the suitability of the tenderers 4. Verifying that the tenders of the suitable tenderers and the services tendered fulfil the requirements 5. Quality comparison of tenders that fulfil the requirements 6. Interviews 7. Price comparison 8. Contract award decision and notification. Appeal period two (2) weeks from the notification. 9. Verifying the fulfilment of the suitability requirements of the selected tenderer 10. Signing the Contract with the selected service provider. The Contracting Authority may wholly or partially interrupt the procurement procedure for a justified reason. The signing of the contract with the selected Tenderer and the commencement and continuation of the implementation of the Programme are subject to the intergovernmental agreement on the programme being in force. No compensation will be payable to tenderers for preparing a tender, presenting it or otherwise taking part in the procedure. The tender documents are available in English language and the tender shall also be submitted in English language. Should the tenderer wish to obtain the tender documents in another language, they shall themselves arrange for their translation and bear the costs thus incurred. The Contracting Authority selects one (1) service provider and concludes a contract with that service provider. The amount of Services to be supplied is an estimate and does not form an obligation for the Contracting Authority to buy that amount of Services. The contract does not give an exclusive right to the service provider to supply the Contracting Authority. When carrying out the implementation phase, the service provider shall procure supplies and services. For these costs separately agreed advance payment is possible. All advance payments require the service provider to provide the Ministry with an acceptable guarantee with a value of 115 per cent of the advance payment. Details of the advance payment are defined in the consultancy contract under the subtitle Advance payments. Should several tenderers have appointed the same expert for their tender, tenderers remain responsible for making an agreement on how they will possibly protect their own trade secrets or ensure the effective availability of the appointed expert resource during the contract period. Additionally, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs requires that the expert commits to confidentiality as regards the content of the interviews. If same person is appointed in several tenders (and thus would participate in the interview several times), that person will only participate in the first interview. The tenders, in which that person has been appointed, will be given the same number of points for the person/expert concerned. Additionally, in order to ensure that tenderers will be treated in an equitable and non-discriminatory manner, the interviews in which the person does not participate will be proportionally shorter. If this is the case, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will provide more detailed information and instructions before the interviews. All duty stations in Ukraine are currently designated as non-family duty stations.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (MFA) can finalize the tendering process only after the AGREEMENT between THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF FINLAND and THE GOVERNMENT OF UKRAINE on the Programme Learning2gether2 has been ratified in both countries. The ratification process is expected to last from two to three months from the publishing day of the Call for Tenders. At this stage, MFA is not able to provide any exact timetable for the process. MFA's goal is that the contract with the winning Tenderer would be signed immediately after the Agreement has been ratified.

Amendment notice published on 4.7.2025: In the section "Procurement object criteria", reference to role "Senior Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist" replaced by reference to role "Senior Expert Education Policy Coordination". --- Amendment notice published on 3.7.2025: Please, see Annex A Questions and answers.