USAID/South Africa, Pretoria, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521-9300

U -- IMPROVING ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE EDUCATION AT TECHNIKONS - ACCESS TO U.S. EXPERTISE, TERTIARY EDUCATION LINKAGES PROJECT NO. 674-0315 SOL RFA NO. 674-96-A-004 POC Contact Point - Dina Way and/or Lynne Kruger, Regional Contracting Office. Contact Point - Dina Way and/or Lynne Kruger, Regional Contracting Office, USAID/South Africa, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521-9300, FAX (27)(12) 323-6443, Tele No. (27)(12) 323-8869, ext 452, 9th floor, Sancardia Center 9th floor, 524 Church Street, Arcadia 0007, Pretoria, South Africa (PO BOX 55380, Arcadia 0007, Pretoria, South Africa) e-mail dway@usaid.gov. The United States Agency for International Development Mission to South Africa (USAID/SA) expects to award a cooperative agreement and is seeking proposals to provide a consortium of South African Technikons with access to expertise from U.S. Colleges and Universities for developing materials for selected engineering courses, for educationally disadvantaged students, which will be more student oriented and student friendly, easier to understand, and practical. The consortium includes five historically disadvantaged technikons: Technikon Northern Transvaal, Mangosuthu Technikon, Transkei Technikon, M L Sultan Technikon and Peninsula Technikon. USAID expects to approve a proposal from the Technikons to support their efforts in this area and at the same time to enter into a cooperative agreement with a U.S. institution or consortium of U.S. institutions which will be responsive to the assistance needs of the South African consortium. USAID/SA will seek innovative, cost effective proposals that will leave substantial technical direction of the activity with the South Africans, with USAID cooperation/coordination to ensure that objectives are met and USAID policies, regulations and procedures are followed. The recipient shall be required to provide expertise relating to the undergraduate curriculum revision process for disadvantaged students, preparation of materials for students and instructors with limited teaching experience, and making introductory engineering courses more relevant. There is a 25% cost sharing requirement for the award of this cooperative agreement. The preferred method of distribution of USAID procurement information is via the Internet or by request of a solicitation on a 3.5'' floppy disk (Word Perfect 5.1/5.2 format). All prospective offerors must notify the contact person in writing if they wish to receive a copy of the RFA and specify if they prefer a hard copy, a diskette, or if they prefer to be notified via Internet when the RFA is ready for downloading. This CBD notice can be viewed and downloaded using the Agency Gopher. The RFA, once issued, can be downloaded from the Agency Gopher, The Gopher address is GOPHER.INFO.USAID.GOV. Select USAID PROCUREMENT AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES from the Gopher menu. From there, choose the heading USAID PROCUREMENTS and then DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE USAID SOLICITATIONS. The RFA can also be downloaded via Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO. USAID.GOV. Logon using the user identification of ''anonymous'' and the password is your e-mail address. Look under the following directory for the RFA: pub/OP/RFA/67496A004/67496A004.rfa. Receipt of this RFA through Internet must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsibility of the recipient of this solicitation document to ensure that it has been received from Internet in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion processes. Offerors who have no access to Internet may receive a hard copy OR a diskette (NOT BOTH) of the Request for Application (RFA). Please indicate your preference and name of contact person, address, telephone and fax numbers. These will be mailed (NOT sent by courier), OR offerors may pick up their RFA diskette or hard copy at USAID/South Africa, 524 Church Street-9th floor reception desk, Sancardia Building, Arcadia, Pretoria 0007, South Africa, PROVIDED, they advise USAID in writing in advance and specify an individual authorized to pick up the document/diskette. (0173)

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