Background of Department

• The World Bank, at the request of Government of Balochistan, is administering a Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) for a project titled “Promoting Girls Education in Balochistan (PGEB)”. The grant would help finance the costs associated with improving education access and retention in Balochistan, affected as a result of conflict and security crisis in the area. There will be a special emphasis on supporting girls’ access to elementary education in the affected areas of the province, but boys will not be excluded as the government purposes to allow gender free access wherever feasible to ensure all children are served. The project will help respond to the situation by providing improved accessibility to schools for children in Balochistan, as well as ensuring retention by improving school facilities and organizing local support for schools and teachers. By the end of the project there would be (i) increased access to schools from grade 1 through 8; (ii) improved retention of children in new and rehabilitated functional schools; (iii) improved mechanism for establishment of new schools through community support and partnership; and(iv) improved community involvement in schools. The Project will be implemented by the Secondary Education Department (SED), Government of Balochistan (GoB) with extensive support and monitoring by the Project Management Unit (PMU) to be established by the SED

Projects under taken

• Promoting Girls Education in Balochistan (Project) Secondary Education Department Govt of Balochistan
• Balochistan Education Support Project BESP

Project Name

• Promoting Girls Education in Balochistan (Project) Secondary Education Department Govt of Balochistan

PROJECT OBJECTIVE AND COMPONENTS:

• 1.1 Project Development Objective
  • The development objective of the three year Project is to improve access to education and retention of children in schools with a special emphasis on girls, in the province of Balochistan
• 1.2 Key performance indicators include
  • number of children (girls and boys) benefitting from newly established schools, and constructed/improved facilities in selected schools
  • retention of children in project schools; and
  • Percentage of schools with functional PTSMCs involved in monitoring of activities at school level
• 1.3 Description of Project Components
  • The Project development objective and results will be achieved by working through four major components

Component A – (US$ 5 Million) Construction of building facilities for shelter-less girls’ schools:

The school infrastructure in Balochistan has been neglected for many years; approximately 58% schools need major repairs, are functioning in a dangerous building or are completely without shelter. The share of girls’ schools in Balochistan is already very low at 29% of the total number of schools, and includes schools functioning without a shelter, in a dangerous building or requiring major repairs, making access a huge issue for girls’ education. Around 435 girls schools, mostly in rural areas are shelter-less or functioning in a dangerous building. The government has an initial list of schools provided by BEMIS indicating schools with no shelter or inadequate shelter. An analysis of this data shows that distribution and enrolment of such schools vary across districts. The high number of such facilities across Balochistan and limited resource availability requires a clear prioritization in selection of these facilities through criteria that benefits maximum beneficiaries. The criteria established for prioritization is discussed in detail in Section1.11.This project will focus only on girls’ schools; the government however, under its own development schemes, plans to include all schools for construction. The processes established under this program for school identification and construction monitoring is expected to be used by the education department for all monitoring activities. A Design and Supervision Construction firm will support the implementation of construction activities and assist PMU in monitoring of construction work. The communities around the selected shelter less schools will be organized by the SED as Parent Teacher School Management Committees (PTSMCs) to ensure local support for effective implementation; the district education departments will have a key role in organizing the PTSMCs. Technical support to organize the PTSMCs will be through the capacity building firm under component C

Component B (US$ 2 Million) – Provision of missing facilities to girls’ schools:

The neglect of infrastructure, if expanded to include minor repairs and missing facilities, encompasses almost 70 percent of all schools in Balochistan. The missing facilities include toilets, boundary walls, additional rooms, blackboards, furniture, and drinking water in primary and middle schools; these will be identified for rehabilitation. The share of girls’ schools in need of repairs is again very high as compared to boys’ schools. Considering the high number of such facilities requiring repair, the government has decided to prioritize the selection of these facilities for the purpose of this project based on certain criteria (discussed in Section 1.11). PTSMC involvement in the rehabilitation work will be an important aspect of the project and will be carried out in close coordination between the capacity building firm for community mobilization, SED and the local communities

Component C (US$ 1.6 Million) – Establishment of new primary schools with community participation:

Almost 40% of settlements in Balochistan are without a school facility. This component will support the Government’s policy to establish new gender free (co-education) schools with community support. The site selection will be prioritized based on established criteria (see Section 1.11) ensuring outreach to maximum number of out of school children and confirmed availability of local teachers. The teachers will be hired on contracts renewable every year based on teacher attendance reports provided by the PTSMCs. The community will be actively involved in the management of schools to ensure local support and protection for the facility, children and teachers. The established demand and support from the community is an essential need in a conflict and insecure environment, where government outreach is limited. Capacity building of community and district officials is to be an important activity under this component to be outsourced to a firm with community engagement experience

Component D (US$ 1.4 Million) – Technical Assistance (TA) to the Secondary Education Department for implementation and monitoring at the district level:

The component will support establishment of systems and procedures for effective planning and implementation of construction and rehabilitation activities, introduction of new/innovative approaches for community-government partnerships and establishment of robust monitoring systems. This would also include technical assistance, and third party monitoring. The TA takes into account the existing capacity and constraints of the provincial and district education departments and ensures building activities that support active involvement of the education officials for hands on capacity building. In addition to the above the TA facility will also build the capacity of the Education officials to develop the link between access and quality and initiate a dialogue on student learning outcomes. The project itself does not envisage conducting student assessments but will use information available from other sources on learning outcomes and encourage the importance of access and quality linkage. An impact evaluation of the project intervention using community support mechanisms to identify new school locations and provide oversight of teachers’ presence in schools will also be designed and conducted under Component D to inform future design and implementation practices and results to guide government policy formulation. Communication mechanisms will be developed by PMU to ensure information sharing upstream (Provincial departments and district education departments) as well as downstream (schools, communities). Some key communication aspects include posting of wide sharing of grievance redressal systems, sharing of criteria for school site selection through district offices, print media and PTSMCs