SECTOR: Education
PROJECT NAME: Nonuniversity Technical Higher Education Reform Program
(1060/OC-AR)
TOTAL COST: $165.0 million
FINANCING:
IDB $ 82.5 million
LOCAL $ 82.5 million
DATE OF APPROVAL: November 25, 1997
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: The objective is to increase the availability, quality and pertinence of skilled manpower through the institutional development of nonuniversity technical higher education. Financing will provide: (a) a system of accrediting provincial institutions and evaluating provincial programs, ranking them on the basis of course quality and relation to labor-market demand; and (b) a National Fund for Financing Institutes of Technology (FONIT), to finance technology institute projects that are innovative in terms of operation and curricula.
The accreditation and evaluation system, which will assess the relevance of the new institutional projects to the requirements of FONIT, will fund: (a) expert advisors; (b) equipment and supplies; (c) printing and distribution of regulatory and operating documents; (d) public dissemination of accreditation and evaluation findings; and (e) operating costs inherent in these processes.
FONIT will finance fifty to sixty projects and create 125 new programs related to employment areas in highest demand: basic industrial technology, services, and health. Projects would receive funding for investments in: (a) organization and management; (b) development of curricula, texts and other teaching materials; (c) human resource management and training; (d) educational equipment; (e) laboratory and workshop equipment; (f) repair and/or expansion of infrastructure and furniture; (g) hiring of visiting instructors; and (h) bibliographic material, computer support, and reproduction and distribution of information materials for the general public.
CONSULTANTS: The program provides for contracting approximately 4,700 person/months of services from experts in curriculum development, institutional development and selection, and operation of laboratory technical equipment and materials. Consulting services will be retained for accreditation and evaluation, project preparation, and sector studies.
GOODS AND EQUIPMENT: Educational, laboratory and workshop equipment, furniture, texts, teaching materials, and supplies will be procured.
CIVIL WORKS: Works will include repair and expansion of infrastructure for FONIT projects.
EXECUTING AGENCY: Ministerio de Cultura y Educación (MCE)
Secretaría de Políticas Universitarias
Pizzurno 935, 2o Piso
1020 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tel: (54-1) 811-1731
Fax: (54-1) 813-1239
Contact: Eduardo Sanchez Martinez
Secretario Universitario