Contacts:
In Delhi: Sudip Mozumder
(91 11) 2461-7241
smozumder@worldbank.org New Delhi, August 14, 2008 - A Credit Agreement of US$ 600 million equivalent, for the Second Elementary Education Project, was signed today between the Government of India and the World Bank. The signatories to the Agreement were Mr. Madhusudan Prasad, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, who signed on behalf of Government of India, and Mr. Rachid Benmessaoud, Acting Country Director, India for the World Bank.
 | Rachid Benmessaoud, Madhusudan Prasad &
Vrinda Sarup at the Signing |
This credit will support the Government of India’s ongoing Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) to provide access to quality education for children aged 6 to 14 years. The project aims to promote equity by enabling hard-to-reach children to attend school. It will create better learning conditions for all children and provide capacity building and academic support to state and sub-state education structures. In the area of oversight, the project will help monitor learning outcomes and support research and evaluation of quality initiatives.
India has made strong progress in enhancing access to education. In 2002, India made elementary education a fundamental right of every child through its 86th constitutional amendment. According to the Government of India figures, between 2003 and 2008, the number of out-of-school children was reduced from 25 million to about 4.5 million. The transition rates from primary to upper primary also improved, from 75 percent in 2002 to 83 percent in 2006. Over 2,00,000 new schools were set up during this period and over 21 million more children attended school. This represents about 6 percent of the total number of children previously out of school, globally.
There has been a significant reduction in gender gaps. Access for children from marginalized groups, minorities, extremely poor households, and educationally and economically lagging states has increased.
“The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan program has served as a powerful vehicle to mobilize stakeholders at all community, district, state, and national levels around the objective of ensuring that every child from 6 to 14 years is included in the education system,” said Rachid Benmessaoud, Acting World Bank Country Director for India. “The challenge now is to include those hardest to reach and to ensure that children get the quality education they deserve to succeed at higher levels of education and subsequently in the labor market, thereby contributing to the country’s overall social and economic development.”
The project is the second phase of support from India’s Development Partners (which also includes the UK’s Department for International Development and the European Commission) to the government’s ongoing and evolving SSA program. With more and more children now entering school, the focus in this next phase is on improving quality with equity. In addition to capacity building and monitoring, the project will support programs to enable the hardest-to-reach children to attend school. In areas where access to education remains low, it will support provision of teachers and construction of primary and upper primary schools. It will continue to support provision of free textbooks and grants to private aided schools to encourage them to subsidize enrolment of students.
“The first phase of SSA saw a rapid expansion of primary school facilities across the country, especially in remote and socially disadvantaged areas, leading to huge increases in elementary school enrollments,” said co-team leaders Sam Carlson, Lead Education Specialist, and Venita Kaul, Senior Education Specialist, World Bank. “SSA II focuses on improving student retention through completion of grade 8 and on improving learning outcomes. Achieving these objectives will ensure that all Indian children obtain a meaningful education, which in turn will play a big role in achieving the education Millennium Development Goals on a global scale.” Total cost of the SSA II is estimated at US$10.7 billion, of which the Government of India will contribute around 55 percent, the States will contribute about 35 percent, and the Development Partners (including the World Bank) approximately 10 percent.
The credit, provided by the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s concessionary lending arm, carries a 0.75 percent service fee and has 35 years to maturity and a 10-year grace period during which no repayment is required. ***************** for more information on the Project, please visit India Elementary Education Project |
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