EDUCATION

Objectives

The Bank will consider applications for financing projects in the education sector for the purpose of promoting greater integration of educational activities within the national development strategy of the member countries. The loans and technical cooperation from the Bank for education will have the following objectives:

• Training of human resources for development: to contribute to the formation of technical and scientific skills to enable people to efficiently carry out the occupational tasks of promotion and management needed for the economic and social development of the country.
• Equality of educational opportunities: to facilitate national efforts for introducing conditions of fairness in access to education opportunities for the entire population.
• Efficiency of investments in education: to stimulate and support national efforts for rational planning of education systems and the essential reforms in content, teaching methods, organization and administration of programs, institutions and systems, in order to achieve more positive results within the financial possibilities of the country.

Fields of Activity

The Bank will preferably finance development projects in the following educational areas:

1. Higher education programs at the professional, postgraduate and scientific and technological research level and the training of specialized technicians in short-duration courses. The Bank will support the role of higher education in the training of management teams needed in the development process and will stimulate the strengthening, at the national and regional levels, of institutions with high academic standards capable of showing the way in critical development areas.

2. Programs on technical education and professional training to turn out skilled workers and middle-level technicians in occupations needed for productive activities and to assure their participation in the social and cultural benefits of their community, including reform and adaptation of middle-level education programs to provide training in technical occupations without sacrificing the opportunity of acquiring basic education.

3. Education programs to provide a minimum of social and work skills to young persons and adults who did not have access to formal education, in order to equip them to find employment in rural development programs or rehabilitation of backward urban areas.

4. Programs to introduce substantive reforms in curriculum, teaching methods, structure, organization and functioning of basic, formal and non-formal education at the primary and secondary level. These programs can include education research, training and retraining of teachers and auxiliary technical staff, non-traditional forms of education, and the design, production and evaluation of institutional materials, equipment and communication systems of proven effectiveness. The basic objective of these programs is to improve the quality and efficiency of education activities and to expand the levels of participation without considerable increase in cost.

5. Programs for improving the efficiency and fairness in the application of funds intended for financing education and promoting the creation of additional sources of financing by improving student loan systems, social security, business support, scholarships for priority professional fields and such other systems as appropriate.

General Evaluation Criteria

SELECTION OF ALTERNATIVES. The Bank is aware that there are substantial differences in the education needs of each of the countries of the region and that it is not possible to establish a uniform standard of priorities applicable to all of the countries or to different circumstances within the same country. Therefore, the selection of financing alternatives to draw up the multi-annual sector program of the Bank will be based primarily on examination of the existing education situation, the economic development plans and programs and the education policy guidelines adopted by the country for achieving the objectives and goals of those plans.

Both in most of the relatively economically less developed countries and in some of the more advanced countries of the region there are serious education deficiencies at the primarily level and consequently high levels of illiteracy in the adult population and low average productivity of the labor force. Faced with these problems, the Bank will stimulate greater attention to this level on the part of the countries and will help them in applying innovations to permit better utilization of their own resources and external financing.

At the secondary and higher levels, the Bank will stimulate structural reform of the education systems and will support projects aimed at improving the capacity of these systems for training human resources for the technological, administrative and scientific functions of the productive sectors.

The Bank will stimulate the development of non-formal education systems and methods to achieve specific objectives when the feasibility of such systems has been reasonably established within the conditions inherent in the country and their advantages of efficiency, fairness and economy in comparison to formal systems. Before deciding on the eligibility of a project it will be necessary to take into account the existing experience with new forms of education suitable to meet the objectives of development and to determine the best method or combination of methods to achieve the purpose established.

FORMULATION OF THE PROGRAM. The identification and selection of projects in the education sector is a continuous process that involves cooperation between the Bank and the national technical entities of the sector. The Bank will seek to put order into this process by supporting to the extent possible the use of sector studies that provide an overall view of the situation and the requirements of the sector and a frame of reference for evaluating possible alternative solutions.

The responsibility of conducting education sector studies falls in any event upon the countries themselves. The Bank will provide its financial and technical support whenever requested, using to the extent possible the cooperation of other specialized technical agencies. The studies will make it possible to identify investment projects of high priority and in these cases the Bank will provide the necessary technical and financial cooperation in the design and preparation of these projects.

Specific Evaluation Criteria

FORMATION OF HUMAN RESOURCES. Reasonably reliable indicators should be established on the probable utilization of the labor market of the types of professionals, technicians and skilled workers that the project will contribute to form. The Bank will stimulate the establishment of systems for studying the trends in human resources employment, although it is not possible to predict with certainty the correlation between available jobs and persons trained in each field of activity beyond relatively short periods of time in order to orient the future evaluation of the investments in the sector.

The project should be made compatible in size, orientation, form and schedule of implementation with identified needs for skilled human resources in a suitable quantity, level and quality for the objectives proposed within a reasonable planning period.

EQUALITY IN EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES. The project should include measures to facilitate access to education to young people and adults forming part of the low-income sectors to facilitate their successful incorporation into the labor force or to improve their productive capacity. Appropriate solutions should be provided for to offset the cultural and financial disadvantages of the poorest students so that they can receive the benefits of the education process.

The possibility should be contemplated of using non-formal education systems or other flexible education means whenever compatible with the objectives of the project, to facilitate access to students who have to work in order to support themselves or their family.

An attempt should be made to provide geographical decentralization of the education activity if the nature of the project so permits, in order to promote balanced development of the various regions of the country.

EFFICIENCY OF INVESTMENTS. The analysis should show that the project is the best available alternative under the circumstances existing in the country, to achieve the proposed objectives as to the technology selected and the investment and operating costs.

The project should introduce, whenever found necessary, appropriate reforms in the methodology of teaching, in the teaching techniques, materials, equipment and physical facilities and in the procedures for admission and promotion of students, in order to achieve greater quality and better output from the system in regard to investment and operating costs.

One of the major objectives of the projects should be to contemplate improvement in the structure and administrative and management practices of the institutions and education systems, including suitable provisions for introducing the necessary reforms in organization and administrative and financial control procedures and for training the staff responsible for all of the key functions of the program and its administration.

Financing Sources

The source of funds and the terms of the loans applicable to financing education sector operations will depend upon the nature of the project and the degree of relative development of the countries and will be governed by the rules set forth for the use of the financial resources of the Bank itself and of those administered under trust.

The loans can be used for financing specific projects, multipurpose global programs in an institution or group of institutions that constitute an education development program.

The financing of education projects can also be part of integrated multisector programs of urban development, rural development, or other fields in which education is an essential component. Joint financing with other international and/or bilateral institutions can also be considered.

In the cases of projects which should be implemented in several stages by their very nature, such as the development of national systems of technical education at the middle level, professional training, higher education or student loans, the Bank can help finance one or more of the stages in accordance with accepted priority criteria without the financing of one stage involving any commitment to finance the remaining stages or excluding the possibility of doing so whenever justified.

The Bank will use technical cooperation resources and mechanisms to support, to the extent necessary, the objectives of its policy for financing education. Reimbursable or nonreimbursable technical cooperation resources can be utilized, according to the guidelines of the technical cooperation manual, for conducting sector studies, prefeasibility, feasibility studies or other studies relating to the planning of studies or other studies relating to the planning of investments in the education sector; improvement and reform of institutions and systems of education, programs teaching methods and procedures and administration of education; training and advanced training of teaching and administrative staff; the holding of seminars and conferences on essential aspects of educational development; or the implementation or evaluation of education projects.

In its technical cooperation activities, the Bank will attempt to enlist the help of specialized technical agencies or institutions and make use of the installed technical capacity of national or regional institutions of learning.

Coordination and Integration

The Bank will coordinate its activities with those of the other international and bilateral technical and financial agencies operating in the region in order to avoid duplication of efforts and assure better utilization of the resources of the Bank and those of its member countries. In this regard, the Bank will pay particular attention to the opportunities of international cooperation and regional, sub-regional or multinational integration in the education sector by financing projects aimed at stimulating such integration and cooperation. The Bank will also promote the carrying out of studies to identify, formulate and evaluate the feasibility of these projects whenever the Bank and the concerned countries agree that this should be done.

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Prevailing Reference Document:
GN-86-3, July 1981,
GN-86-A, March 1979.