Loan for $59 million to benefit more than 5,000 children in the capital of Brazil’s Santa Catarina state
Brazil will support the Project to Expand and Improve Early and Basic Education in the city of Florianópolis to improve educational quality and coverage. The program will be financed with the help of a loan approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for $59 million.
Population growth in Brazil’s southern region has resulted in the need to expand the network of schools in Florianópolis, the second largest city in the state of Santa Catarina. In addition, the municipality of Florianópolis has proposed the goal of universal coverage of all-day education. At present, all-day education is available for only 69 percent of students at the early childhood level―which in Brazil includes both daycare and preschool―and 21 percent at the basic level. The program is expected to result in coverage of 100 percent at the early childhood level and 68 percent at the basic level.
According to 2010 data from Prova Brasil, the municipality also faces significant challenges in educational quality. At present, only 22.4 percent of students meet standards for Portuguese and 14.2 percent for mathematics.
The program will address these challenges by investing $42.1 million to improve school infrastructure for expanding coverage of early and basic childhood education and enrolling 4,000 additional basic level students and 2,600 children in some form of an expanded day program.
In addition, the program will provide $9.9 million for improving the quality of education by reviewing the process of selecting and recruiting teachers and investing in training in comprehensive education and pedagogical skills. Also included will be information technology in all basic education schools, consisting of multimedia labs with laptops or tablets for students and teachers.
The program includes a management, monitoring, and evaluation component consisting of $4.4 million for strengthening the ability of the Municipal Department of Education to manage the education network, which will be a pioneer experience in the systematic monitoring of childhood education educational quality.
The IDB loan is for a term of 25 years with a grace period of 5-1/2 years and an interest rate based on LIBOR.The local counterpart will be $60 million.