$130 million World Bank aid for Nepal' education

The World Bank will contribute a further $130 million towards meeting Nepal's Education for All goals. The School Sector Reform Programme approved today is the main vehicle for the implementation of the Government of Nepal's 15-year National Programme of Action. World Bank funding will meet a slice of the programme's expenditures over the next five years -- both recurrent and development -- covering all levels of school education.
The project -- a blend of credit of $71.50 million and grant $58.50 million from the International Development Association, the World Bank's concessionary lending arm -- is credit for 40 years to maturity with a 10-year grace period.
The programme focuses on the three pillars of Access, Inclusion and Quality. It is supported by eight other development partners who will also pool their resources, together with the World Bank, and with government resources. In addition, five 'non-pooling partners' will support the program directly. The total cost of the five-year programme -- from October 2009 to 2013-14 -- is estimated to be about $2.6 billion, of which pooled development partners have committed approximately $500 million.
As a sector wide approach, the programme will finance salaries and benefits for nearly 120,000 government school teachers. It will also finance salaries of around 100,000 community recruited teachers through salary grants. Financing for all additional teachers to be recruited during the program period will be made through a per capita child financing formula that takes into account the number of students enrolled in a particular school. The programme plans to address the problem of uneven deployment of teachers by providing incentives for teachers to transfer from schools that have too many teachers to those with too few, said the bank.
The programme will also finance a range of activities intended to ensure equitable access and quality basic education for all children in the 5-12 age group, prepare pre- school age children for basic education through Early Childhood Education Development and deliver basic numeracy and literacy to youth and adults, especially women.
"Nepal should be proud of its accomplishments in the education sector," said Susan Goldmark, World Bank Country Director for Nepal.
Because earlier programmes were so successful, the demand for quality schooling beyond primary level has soared. To meet this demand and to provide children with skills to prepare them for a life of work, Nepal is now combining the primary and lower secondary cycles to form a basic education cycle of grades 1-8 and a secondary cycle of grades 9-12.
It will also finance the construction and rehabilitation of classrooms and other school facilities as well as block grants for textbooks and teacher salaries. With these activities, the programme aims to increase the Net Enrollment Ratio at primary level to 98 per cent from the current 91.8 per cent, and at the basic level to 84 per cent from the current 75 per cent.
"In spite of the difficult political environment Nepal has been able to undertake a series of ground breaking reforms in school education, and the program will take these reforms even further," said Rajendra Dhoj Joshi, Senior Education Specialist and Co-Task Team Leader at the World Bank. "Nepal has firmly established itself as the world leader in community management of schools. Community management of schools builds upon Nepal's tradition of community initiative in delivery of education. The credit for significant achievements made in the education sector largely goes to communities. SSRP will accord high priority to enhancing community capacity."