$100m WB loan for secondary education development soon

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FE Report
The World Bank is expected to provide US$100 million Education Sector Development Support Credit (ESDSC) for Bangladesh's secondary level education sector development soon.
A loan agreement for the $100 million fund between the government and the Washington-based donor will be signed on June 23 in Dhaka, sources in the Economic Relations Division (ERD) said.
After signing the loan agreement, the government will receive the fund for undertaking different reform programmes in the secondary level education in the country.
A senior ERD official said that the global lender has decided to provide the loan to Bangladesh following impressive achievements in the education sector.
The World Bank in its assessment report said Bangladesh has made significant progress in education. Gross primary enrollment rates are close to 100 percent, and the secondary enrollment rate has more than doubled since independence.
The country has already met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on gender parity in school enrollment at primary and secondary levels. This policy-based loan complements several existing World Bank-financed projects in the education sector, the report said.
Sources in the ERD said the Education Ministry through the $100 million ESDSC would undertake reform agenda to address systematic governance issues in order to raise the quality and cost-effectiveness of service delivery, and improve equity of access in secondary education.
The sources added that the ministry would spend the fund for ensuring accountability in the secondary schools, both in government and non-government sector, establishing institutional mechanisms to link school subvention to objective measures of school performance, improving teacher's quality through emphasis on teacher recruitment and training and enhancing transparency in textbook production and making curriculum more relevant and demand driven.
A senior ERD official told the FE: "The loan is expected to be disbursed within this month and once received, the fund will go directly to the national budget for current fiscal 2006-07 and help to undertake different development works under the current annual development programme."
"In the meantime, we have got the $200 million development support credit (DSC)-IV from the World Bank a few days back which directly added to the current year's budget," he said.
Meanwhile, the $100 million ESDSC by World Bank will be the third one for the country. The bank earlier disbursed $200 million ESDSC in two tranche for Bangladesh aimed at sustaining the country's reforms of secondary education.
The first $100 million ESDSC was approved by the Bank on August 29, 2004 and the second tranche on March 7, 2006.
The government will have to repay the loan in 40 years with a 10 years grace period. Interest rate for the loan will be 0.75 per cent, the ERD sources said.