ADB grants US$ 500 million for pry edn

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a US$500 million loan to facilitate primary education in Bangladesh aiming to upgrade quality education for all children- from pre-primary to grade five.
The board of the Manila-based lending agency endorsed the credit at its headquarters on Thursday.
ADB's Country Director for Bangladesh Mr Manmahon Parkash said on Wednesday ADB has given highest priority to developing Bangladesh's skilled manpower for its sustainable economic growth.
Despite this progress, Bangladesh still has to improve the quality and equity of primary education.
For example, a 2015 national student assessment indicated that 35 per cent of students at grade-3 had yet to achieve the grade-level competencies for Bengali and even 61 per cent for mathematics.
The assessment results were even worse for grade-5 students.
Moreover, many school-age children are still out of school (about 2.5 million).
This is more prevalent in poor families and in disadvantaged locations such as city slums, ADB said.
"Despite a series of investments, Bangladesh's primary education system has not been able to keep pace with the rapid increase in student enrollment," said ADB Senior Social Sector Specialist Ms. Xin Long.
"ADB's results-based lending programme supports the government's initiatives-in coordination with other development partners-to tackle the challenges and lift the overall performance of primary education."
ADB in statement said the rapid expansion of primary education has been at the heart of the country's economic development, which has seen poverty halved since 2000 to 24.3 per cent and Bangladesh reach lower middle-income status.
The ADB loan will be used in the US$14.7 billion Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP)-4 aimed at improving the quality and equity of primary education through.
The programme will help reduce double-shift operations at schools by recruiting more teachers and building more classrooms, step up teacher education and provide needs-based training for teachers and teacher educators, reform examinations and assessments, as well as enrich teaching and learning resources such as with digital materials.
It will also expand education services for out-of-school children through learning centers, bring more children with special education needs and disabilities to schools, improve school-level performance and management, and strengthen institutions.
To improve the learning environment, the programme will provide gender-segregated and disability-accessible sanitation and safe water in almost all schools.
New construction and major retrofitting will meet disaster risk resilience requirements, especially in disaster-prone areas.
The government will provide $13.2 billion of the total $14.7 billion PEDP-4 programme cost, while joint financing development partners including ADB, World Bank, United Nations Children's Fund, and European Union will contribute $1.38 billion.
ADB's loan will be disbursed over five years till 2023.

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