The Inter-American Development Bank today announced the approval of a $6 million soft loan to Bolivia to finance the design and regulatory framework of a training system that will equip members of the workforce with technical and technological skills relevant to the job market.
The new system will both strengthen the established educational system and create alternative opportunities for acquiring job skills.
Among the several components of the program will be three pilot projects: one of them will offer 100 training courses designed to provide marketable job skills to 2,000 school dropouts. Another will consist of using a delegated management model, supervised by the private sector, in three public post-secondary technical schools, and a third will train rural women in job skills.
The new training system will be designed and carried out through a consensus-based process that will include the participation of civil society organizations and the business community.
The program will finance ways to assess, coordinate, accredit and regulate the different public and private experiences in technical and technological training and develop innovative approaches, guided by assessments of existing practices in the country and the pilot projects.
The IDB loan is for a 40-year term, with a 10-year grace period, at an annual interest rate of 1 percent during the grace period and 2 percent thereafter. Local counterpart funds total $1.5 million.
The program will be carried out by the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes.*