Plan Ceibal II will benefit 90,000 primary and middle school students and expand English Ceibal model to 2,000 groups or urban public schools
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $6 million loan to Uruguay to finance the Plan Ceibal II, which will help to strengthen mathematics learning by 90,000 primary and middle school students and extend English teaching to half of all 4th, 5th and 6th graders in urban public primary schools.
The so-called Plan Ceibal II to Support Education in Mathematics and English in Primary and Middle School seeks to use new information and communications technologies to help improve the math and English instruction at the primary and middle-school levels.
The initiative has a three-pronged approach: expanding the Mathematics Adaptive Platform (PAM in Spanish), broadening the Ceibal model in English and assessing the impact of these measures.
Steps to be taken include expanding the coverage of teachers and students who know and use the PAM to boost learning of mathematics. The number of schools with capacity to use the platform will go from 280 to 400 at the primary level and from 52 to 125 at the secondary level.
At the same time, Ceibal in English will reach 2,000 groups of 4th, 5th and 6th graders in urban public schools through the hiring of off-site teachers, technical assistance to 2,000 classroom teachers including training and promotion, delivery of materials to schools and a new version of the CREA platform for managing digital content to facilitate the work of the off-site teachers and those actually in the classroom.
The $6 million IDB loan is over 25 years, with a grace period of 42 months, an interest rate pegged to the Libor and a local contribution of $921,000.