Sector Fund

Contract summary

Industry

• Project management consultancy services - 72224000

• Research and development consultancy services - 73200000

• Education and training services - 80000000

Location of contract

Any region

Procurement reference

tender_431753/1354348

Published date

15 May 2024

Closing date

4 June 2024

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

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Description

Update 29.05.24. Please be aware that this market engagement session has been suspended until further notice, due to the election. Contact me at Robert.Alexander@Education.gov.uk to express your interest for any future activity. Include your organisation's name, email address, and a maximum of 2 attendees (with their emails).

Opportunity: After July 2024, we may proceed with market engagement activities for a multi-year requirement, with spend ranging from £1-5 million. We expect an organisation or consortium to deliver the below services. If we proceed with this procurement, we intend to establish a multi-year contract with break clauses, starting with a pilot year. If the pilot year is successful, the Department may proceed with further years.

Our Need: Following the Call for Evidence that we published in November 2023, it is clear that the number one request from educators is further training and guidance on the safe use of AI. To help education professionals take advantage of AI's potential, we require a provider who can deliver the following functions.

Training: we are proposing a training package with 4 elements:
- An online resource that covers essential training for all teachers across early years settings, school and colleges. This would include a mix of delivery methods to be determined by the provider but is likely to include a website with written and video elements, as well as the opportunity for trainees to start 'having a go' at prompting a simple AI system.
- Development of a series of case studies for the use of AI. This element would involve administering approx. 5-10 grants to award to teachers or organisations to develop case studies on effective practice in successfully implementing widely available AI tools in schools and colleges.
- Further training to support educators in developing more advanced skills through a series of live webinars covering different techniques for the use of AI, including the case studies as outlined above and a series of 'drop-in' sessions that will follow these webinars where interested educators will be able to put forward questions in advance to be discussed at the event.
- A toolkit for leaders to support with the implementation and embedding of effective practice using AI

Edtech evidence board: we seek a project team to facilitate the running of an 'edtech evidence board' of experts to quality assure evidence of edtech product efficacy against set criteria. This will involve engaging the edtech sector to submit evidence of product efficacy. Area-specific committees would then assess this evidence, with their decisions would be scrutinised and ratified by an overarching board, before being published. The project team, board and committees will need to create criteria against which to assess this evidence. This approach will provide schools and colleges with better evidence on which products are grounded in evidence, and support the edtech sector in knowing how to create better evidence.

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More information

Previous notice about this procurement

Sector Fund

• Early engagement
• Published 15 May 2024, last edited 21 May 2024

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About the buyer

Contact name

Robert Alexander

Address

Cheylesmore House, 5 Quinton Rd, Coventry
Coventry
CV1 2WT
England

Email

robert.alexander@education.gov.uk