Consultant- Development and enhancement of online teacher training platforms in Iraq

JOB DETAILS Type of contract : Consultant Contract Level : Level 3 - Senior Hiring Unit : Education Sector (ED) Duty Station : Baghdad Work location : Remote Duration of contract : 11 months Hiring open to : External candidates Application deadline (Midnight UTC+3 Time) : 16/06/2026 UNESCO Core Values: Commitment to the Organization, Integrity, Respect for Diversity, ProfessionalismOVERVIEW During the COVID-19 pandemic, education actors in Iraq made significant investments in delivering teaching and learning through distance modalities, including television and digital technologies. These efforts were largely uncoordinated, with content developed and delivered in the absence of an overarching policy framework, resulting in inconsistent quality and reach across the country. In response, UNESCO and the Federal Ministry of Education worked together to develop an EdTech Action Plan, a shared framework for the integration of digital tools in teaching and learning. This initiative stems from Iraq’s commitments under the Transforming Education Summit Track 4: Learning and Digital Transformation, and UNESCO’s sub-programme on Digital and Distance Education and which falls within the Access and Equity pillar of the Iraq National Education Strategy (INES). The Ministry of Education in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) has developed and operated E-rahenan, an online teacher training platform since 2021. The platform delivers structured, cohort-based professional development. In this platform teachers form groups, complete self-paced learning content, and submit collaborative tasks. A designated national trainer reviews and approves these tasks before teachers advance to subsequent modules. E-rahenan is available in Kurdish, Sorani and Kurdish Badini and has been in active use since its launch in in early 2020’s. The Federal Ministry of Education has identified the need to establish a dedicated national platform for Teacher Continuous Professional Development (TCPD) to serve educators across all governorates of Federal Iraq. Such a platform does not currently exist at the federal level. The Federal platform will be delivered fully in Arabic with informational English and Kurdish, informed by E-rahenan’s proven pedagogical model, and will serve as the single authoritative source for teacher professional development and certification in Federal Iraq. In parallel, the E-rahenan platform requires a technical review and enhancement. Having operated since 2021, the platform’s underlying technology requires modernisation to address accumulated technical debt, security vulnerabilities, and performance limitations. This enhancement will improve E-rahenan’s architecture, security, and long-term maintainability while fully preserving all existing content, user data, and the Kurdish Sorani and Badini interfaces upon which KRI teachers depend. In view of the above, the assignment addresses both requirements as a single integrated engagement. The two activities share a common audit and assessment foundation, follow the same sequential phases, and are subject to unified governance and acceptance procedures. The two platforms will remain operationally independent. There is no shared infrastructure, no data synchronisation, and no integration layer between themLong Description ASSIGNMENTS Within the framework of the EU funded project on ‘Improved teaching and Learning and Enhanced Education Management (ITALEEM), the objectives of this assignment are: Review the E-rahenan source code and current architecture, identify the areas requiring enhancement, and deliver an upgraded version of the platform that maintains all existing content and the complete Kurdish Sorani and Badini interfaces for KRI teachers. Build a National Teacher Professional Development Hub for the Federal Ministry of Education. The hub will be guided by E-rahenan’s pedagogical framework and deliver content in full Arabic with English and Kurdish informational materials, serving as the sin