Report No. PID7969
Project Name                     Bosnia-Herzegovina-Education Development (@)
Project
Region                           Europe and Central Asia Region
Sector                           Other Education
Project ID                       BA58512
Borrower(s)                      STATE OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
Implementing Agency
Address MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
Project Coordination Unit (PCU) Federation
Obala Maka Dizdara 2, Sarajevo, BiH
Contact Person: Mr. Kerim Karabdic
Tel: (387.71) 665.261
Fax: (387.71) 471.767
Email: Karabdic@Bih.Net.Ba
Environment Category             C
Date PID Prepared                April 14, 2000
Projected Appraisal Date         November 29, 1999
Projected Board Date             May 16, 2000
1. Country and Sector Background
Main Sector Issues The major issues to be addressed in education can be
usefully separated into two categories: those education issues which
confront most other educational systems in Central and Eastern Europe -
related only tangentially to the war and post-war politics - and those
education issues which are unique to the post-conflict environment in
BiH. Progress to date in addressing these issues is summarized in section
3 (strategic choices) below. Education issues in the first category
include the following:n Teaching: nearly all the roughly 21,000 primary
school teachers across the Federation and RS are in need of professional
development to help them learn and adopt modern child centered teaching
methodologies which were not part of the pre-service training curriculum
in the former Yugoslavia. Similarly, any transition to less
occupationally-specific secondary education programs will require the
in-service training of the majority of the nearly 9,000 secondary teachers
now in the system across the Federation and RS. While the problem of
under-skilled teachers was considerably aggravated by the war -- in terms
of a temporary reliance on teachers who did not possess the formal two
year post-secondary teaching credential -- the need to modernize teaching
and methodological approaches has been among the highest priorities in all
CEE transition countries. Although there have been a number of
donor-financed initiatives in various Cantons and schools, there is
currently no strategy for focusing attention and resources on upgrading
existing teacher skills in any systematic way. The situation in
pre-service training is similar. Attention has been focused on
re-building, staffing and equipping teacher training facilities, with
little attention or funding being devoted to modernizing teaching
methodologies and devoting more student time to practice teaching.n
Curriculum: educational programs throughout BiH are characterized by a



dense and ambitious body of knowledge to be learned, leaving little
flexibility to focus on critical thinking and learning skills or to deal
with children with varying capabilities. Despite dramatic changes in the
skill needs of the labor force, what is learned in the schools and how it
is learned is changing slowly, if at all. There is no standardized
information on student performance at any level of the system which could
be used to monitor progress in qualitative improvements or compare
educational attainment within or outside BiH. RS authorities have made
some progress in developing a strategy for restructuring learning
objectives and developing educational performance standards, but the
Federation still needs to begin this process. Although the need to
develop new curriculum programs and standards is not directly related to
the war, the processes of undertaking such reform has been greatly
complicated by the post-conflict environment where the politics and
language of the curriculum has taken center stage, particularly within the
Federation, over the need to take a critical view of the strengths and
weaknesses of exiting programs.n Secondary Technical/Vocational Education
and Adult Training:   approximately 70t of secondary students are enrolled
in specialized programs which are expensive to operate - due to low
student/teacher ratios and equipment needs - and externally inefficient -
graduates are trained in narrow, often occupationally specific
specialization for which there is questionable labor market demand. The
secondary system in BiH is, thus, out of alignment with the emerging
market economy's need for broad-based skills, labor flexibility and
continuous learning. Little focus has been given in BiH, to date, to the
need for transition in secondary education which will require the
development of new broad-based programs and an extensive re-training
program for the existing secondary teaching force. A reform of secondary
technical/vocational education will also necessitate commensurate reforms
in the field of adult training where occupationally specific training is
more relevant. The goals are to develop a network of training suppliers
(private-for-profit, public, semi-public, NGOs, etc.), to bring social and
private sector partners into the governance of adult training, to
complement Government funding with cost recovery, and to facilitate the
availability of labor market information.n Higher Education: as elsewhere
in Eastern and Central Europe, tertiary education in BiH is highly
fragmented. Although five "universities" have been re-established
following the war, the system contains roughly 70 component institutions
each with a significant degree of autonomy. This fragmentation makes it
exceeding difficult to pursue policy objectives aimed at allocating powers
and responsibilities efficiently between the components of the system.
There are no common standards for admission, tuition, staff recruiting or
remuneration, and no mechanism to ensure commonality of academic
standards. This fragmentation is even further complicated in the
Federation by an uncertain governance and financing framework for higher
education in which each Canton is responsible for higher education in its
territory, although more than half the 10 Cantons do not have functioning
universities. The need for a strategy aimed at developing academic and
administrative standards and pursuing efficiency gains through
consolidation is being promoted by Council of Europe, but has not yet been
addressed adequately by local authorities, partially due to the messy
post-conflict political and institutional environment.n Management
Capacity and Information: as with higher education above, the governance
and administration of general education is highly fragmented - each of the
ten cantons is nominally responsible for education in its area - making
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policy and qualitative reforms difficult to coordinate. Detailed
information on the system and its financing is not readily available and
information that does exist is not used to support decision making in the
sector. Moreover, there is no capacity for systematically evaluating
student performance, and it is, therefore, difficult to assess the quality
of teaching and learning. Ensuring the availability of reliable
administrative, financial and performance information is a pre-requisite
to beginning a productive dialogue on the need for education reform.In
addition to these issues which BiH shares with the majority of its Central
and Eastern European neighbors, there are two important issues which are
unique to the post-conflict environment and pose particular constraints to
education reform:fn Inefficient Governance and Financing Structures: the
delegation of responsibilities for education to the cantons in the Bosnian
Federation has proven to be a particular constraint to efficient public
sector management and educational reform. Canton level ministries of
education currently function as mini-centralized bureaucracies which
suffer both the costs of over-centralization and the dis-economies of
scale normally associated with decentralization. The cantons have made
varying degrees of progress in developing and adopting education laws for
each level of the system which mostly re-enforce an inefficient allocation
of functional responsibilities. As a general proposition, the key to
establishing an efficient distribution of responsibilities and functions
among the various government levels -- Entity, Canton, municipality,
school -- should be to assign to higher levels the responsibility for
ensuring quality and consistency of educational programs, while ensuring
that lower levels are given the responsibility and authority (including
budget and expenditure authority) to implement programs within established
norms. The roles of school boards and municipal governments in school
management also remain to be determined. While the RS Ministry of
Education retains responsibility for the prescribed quality control
functions of a central ministry, the need to consider decentralization
reforms which push decision making authority closer to the service
providers applies equally in RS. As mentioned above, higher education
fragmentation is not unique to BiH's education governance structure, but
the nominal responsibility of the Cantons for tertiary education in their
areas further complicates efforts to develop consensus on needed reforms.n
Nationalist Politics and Language Separation: Decision making in BiH's
education sector is dominated by the politics of post conflict
resolution. A rational allocation of various functions, such as
performance evaluation and quality control, to the central level is not
currently possible due to the desire to maintain educational separation
within constituent groups. To further complicate matters, nationalistic
efforts to differentiate the common language of BiH into three separate
languages has become an excuse for lack of cooperation in developing new
curricula, textbooks and educational materials. This politically forced
separation in education is detrimental in terms of long term
nation-building efforts in BiH, the need for a rational distribution of
functions, and the efficient use of resources (class size, facilities
utilization and procuring books and other educational materials, etc.)
The lack of cooperation is also a dis-incentive for funding agencies which
would like to fund educational reforms, but are reluctant to do so in the
context of efforts to re-enforce segregation in the schools.Government
Strategy Following the end of hostilities, the education system has
gradually been re-built and - while not achieving levels of funding and
organization that existed prior to the war - teaching and learning at all
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levels is now being carried out at minimally acceptable standards in most
areas of BiH. However, the level of destruction of the education system
has caused political and educational leaders and the donor community to
focus their attention on physical re-construction of the system over the
past three years, postponing and, to some extent, ignoring needed
educational reforms which have been ongoing for 4-6 years in many other
countries throughout Eastern and Central Europe. The multitude of donor
funding opportunities for re-construction and the chaotic post-conflict
environment also contributed to re-enforcing old structures and attitudes
- such as inadequate methodological training of teachers, occupationally
specific training at the secondary level, and the fragmented higher
education system - rather than influencing authorities to re-think
structures and approaches in the context of the education system's role in
economic transition. Education authorities in the Federation and RS are
not currently in a position to prepare a coherent and well-justified
medium term education development strategy. In addition to the
over-emphasis on physical reconstruction mentioned above, strategy
development has been hindered by a lack of reliable information and basic
analysis of public resource needs -- the type of information and analysis
this project is aimed at producing. In the Federation, strategy
development has been equally hindered by decentralization of education
responsibility to ten Cantons and by the failure of the Federation's two
main constituent groups to cooperate on educational matters. The RS
Ministry of Education produced an Education Strategy in 1998 which sets
out broad priorities for improving educational quality, but does not
adequately place education in its broader socio-economic context -- in
terms of minority rights and the changing demand for labor market skills
-- and does not adequately address the financial, institutional and
capacity constraints to achieving its qualitative goals. In the absence
of an agreed strategy, the Bank and the Council of Europe joined together
to undertake an Education Governance and Finance Review (November 1999,
Council of Europe/World Bank) which provides the framework and
recommendations for a preliminary medium term education strategy. Given
that education is a canton responsibility in the Federation, the ten
Cantons and RS were the principal counterparts for this initiative.      The
main theme of the Education Governance and Finance Review is the need to
support common "intermediary institutions" and shared management
mechanisms that will allow all three constituent groups in BiH to
cooperate and coordinate their efforts on a professional basis in
education. (Intermediary institutions are public or semi-public agencies,
associations, councils, etc. which are created to focus on professional
topics or coordination and which are complementary to the work of
politically appointed line ministries.) The rationale behind this focus
on professional intermediary institutions and shared management mechanisms
is to focus attention on professionalism in education and the
compatibility of educational achievement and public sector management of
education with standards and institutional innovations in Western Europe
-- a goal that all three constituent groups share. This strategy should
be viewed in parallel with the need to reduce focus, in the short term, on
the intractable questions associated with the political control of
education resources and content, which are becoming more entrenched as a
result of efforts on the part of donors and some progressive internal
actors to force cooperation. In the absence of intermediary institutions
and information collection mechanisms, it will be impossible to
constructively promote cooperation and coordination and prevent an
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increasing entrenchment of parallel institutions. A second and related
theme of the Education Governance and Finance Review is the need to
develop a modern public sector knowledge base in education, which is, in
fact, often the role of professional intermediary institutions in OECD
countries.  The development of reliable and standardized public
information on educational inputs, outputs and outcomes (student
achievement and system performance) would provide the baseline for
objectivity in the public debate over education and gradually help change
the public dialogue in education from one focused almost exclusively on
politics to one focused on the quality of teaching and learning and how
extremely scarce public resources can best be allocated to ensure the
achievement of educational standards compatible with those in Western
Europe. Such formation would also eventually permit compatible policy and
strategy development across the three main constituent groups in BiH.
Regarding the long term strategy for education governance and financing in
BiH, the report recommends a decentralization of administrative and
political control over educational inputs (teachers, books, curriculum,
financing, etc.) to schools or municipalities. Decentralization of
control over education (which does not now exist in the highly centralized
cantons and RS) is compatible with the desire on the part of the
constituent groups to promote locally-based content -- a desirable goal in
education -- and is compatible with the heritage of decentralized control
of education administration in the former Yugoslavia. However, effective
and equitable decentralization in education should be complemented with
the development of capacity at central levels to measure system
performance, undertake quality control, and establish policies and
guidelines for the system. Given the unique education governance
constraints of BiH, which are not conducive to centrally-driven reforms,
the path to effective decentralization is twofold: first, a reliance on
piloted, learning-oriented reform initiatives in BiH's 11 independent
administrative areas (10 cantons and RS); and, second, a reliance on
intermediary institutions to undertake performance monitoring and quality
assurance functions in the short term, while setting the groundwork for
strategy development, coordinated reform and consensus building in the
long term.   Finally, also in keeping with the study's recommendations to
stimulate an environment for decentralization, there is a crucial need in
the short term to develop a mechanism to provide direct support to schools
and teachers, which are starved in the current under-funded environment
for the small amounts of non-salary recurrent funding that allow and
motivate creativity and innovation among teachers. In addition to the
direct and immediate benefits associated with making more learning
resources available to teachers and schools, school-based funding and
learning initiatives will set the ground work for increased school and
community level control of education. Given the strong political
resistance at central levels to integrating education across constituent
groups, empowering schools and local communities to take control of their
own educational delivery will play an important part in the reform of
education governance in the future. The Education Governance and Finance
Review was prepared in close consultation with the principal education
donor partners (Office of the High Representative, UNESCO, Council of
Europe, World Bank) among which there is general consensus and support for
the conclusions and strategic recommendations of the report. Coverage in
the SoSAC The Social Sector Adjustment Credit (FY00) will focus on social
protection and labor issues, for which the Living Standards Measurement
Survey, financed under the project, is expected to produce key poverty and
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expenditure data. A second Social Sector Adjustment Credit is expected to
begin preparation in FY01 which should address finance and equity issues
in education, focusing principally on higher education. Information
produced under this investment operation will be key to preparation of the
second adjustment operation.
2. Objectives
The project has the following three broad objectives:to mobilize the
professional capacity of teachers to improve the teaching and learning
processes in schools, and as a result improve the quality of education
being offered to primary school children in BiH.to promote the efficient
and equitable use of scarce public resources for education in BiH by
providing public policy makers and decision makers with management tools
and information necessary to measure inputs, outputs and outcomes in the
education system.to promote cooperation and coordination across the three
main constituent groups in an effort to reduce inefficient resource use
and build a professional basis for stakeholder dialogue in education
throughout BiH
3. Rationale for Bank's Involvement
Continued Bank financing for the education sector in Bosnia will promote
the following objectives: (1) the establishment of intermediary
institutions and management mechanisms in education will allow cooperation
and coordination, which will lead to sustained nation building and more
efficient and equitable management of education throughout BiH;(2) the
creation of standardized and reliable information on system inputs,
outputs and outcomes will help, over time, transform the public debate in
education from one focused only on politics to one that focuses on system
performance, student achievement and the efficient use of public
resources;(3) the amount of IDA funding and the coordination required to
access these funds will continue to provide a significant incentive for
communication and cooperation within the Federation and between the
Federation and RS; (4) the Bank's strong partnership with the Federation
and RS Ministries of Education, developed in the context of our responsive
reconstruction support, will allow us to move expeditiously and address
comprehensive issues in an environment of trust; and (5) the Bank's
support will continue to help mobilize and coordinate support for
education from other donors, including the $1.9 million in parallel and
co-financing allocated to this project by the EC and the Government of
Italy.(6) Financing for an LSMS will allow the government of BiH to meet
new IMF/IDA requirements to prepare a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper by
providing the first reliable data on household welfare across the entire
country.
4. Description
The following project components have been prepared and will be
appraised:A Quality Fund (US$ 3.7 million) - this component will provide
financing for non-salary incentives to primary schools and primary school
teachers with the aim of stimulating innovation and creativity at the
school level. It also provides support for building capacity and
stimulating innovation in teacher training institutions. A Quality Fund,
in the amount of $3 million, will be established under a single governing
Board, already appointed by the Federation Minister and Deputy Minister of
Education, Science, Culture and Sports and the RS Minister of Education.
The Board itself will contribute to the need for shared intermediary
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institutions across the three main constituent groups in BiH. The Quality
Fund will support three sub-components: school grants (ranging between
US$2,000 and US$10,000) awarded on a competitive basis to finance
educational improvement projects which will be designed by teachers in
participating primary schools and aimed at improving their teaching
practices (school grants are currently being piloted in the
Herzegovina-Neretva Canton and RS under Italian Trust Fund financing);
teacher training grants and merit-based training scholarships to reward
primary school teachers who are doing an exemplary job and to allow
primary school teachers to engage in self-selected in-service training
activities (contracts are expected to range between US$150 and US$200 --
no cash payments will be made to teachers); grants of about US$ 20,000 to
support the strengthening of institutions that offer pre-service and
in-service training for teachers. Awards to teacher training institutions
will be selected among proposals presented by university faculties,
pedagogical academies, NGOs and pedagogical institutes. A Standards and
Assessment Agency (US$ 3.7 million) - this institution will provide
information to the education community and the public at-large on student
achievement and overall system performance with the aim of learning about
the system's strengths and weaknesses, promoting accountability in public
education and measuring compatibility between educational standards in BiH
and the rest of Europe. The Agency will be a shared inter-Entity
institution supplying high quality professional services in the field of
student assessments. To achieve the above goals, the Agency's primary task
will be to define performance standards (i.e. what students should know
and be able to do in given subjects at given stages of their schooling)
and to assess to what extent those standards are beginning reached across
BiH. In particular, the Agency will:gather, process and publish
quantitative and qualitative data about the levels of learning
(performance outputs) at primary and secondary levels in order to inform
the decision-making process;assist individual cantons or entities with
their own assessment projects, where these are consistent with the overall
aims of the Agency;provide a research and development facility to
education institutions and individuals in respect of assessment
issues;encourage and assist in the development of expertise in the field
of assessment through training;seek to harmonize assessment practices in
BiH with best practice elsewhere in Europe.In the longer term, depending
on politically acceptability, the Agency could be asked to lead the work
of establishing an Examinations Board. This would provide examinations for
school leavers and award nationally and internationally recognized
certificates of achievement. Any future role for the Agency in
certificated examinations for BiH would be conditional on the unanimous
approval of all representatives on the Agency's Board.The project will
finance the capital costs of establishing the Agency, as well as initial
recurrent expenditures on a declining basis over four years. The Entities
will be expected to budget funds for the recurrent costs of supporting the
Agency beginning in fiscal year 2001.An Education Management Information
System (US$ 2.1 million) - this component will finance development of a
BiH-wide EMIS that will enable improved sector management and
compatibility of information among BiH's decentralized education systems.
It will also test the viability of a per student budgeting model designed
to promote increased efficiency and equity in education spending.
Specifically, the project will support a process aimed at:determining core
canton education statistical information needs at primary and secondary
levels;developing computer software for data collection, collation and
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report generation as the initial module in an EMIS;assisting, at the
canton and schools levels, the piloting of software, the upgrading of
cantonal hardware, and training and monitoring;assisting, at the canton
and school levels, the improvement of management capabilities through a
pilot of capitation based bulk grant system; anddeveloping and financing
implementation of an EMIS in all cantons in the Federation and the RS, and
expanding the capitation based funding mechanism, where feasible.EMIS
modules for education statistics and capitation funding will be piloted
under the Second Emergency Education Rehabilitation Project. The design
of the roll out to other cantons/RS will be based on the results of these
pilots. Management training will be provided to stakeholders in the
system at various levels (canton, school and school boards) during the
roll out. A Higher Education Reform (US$ 3.5 million) -- this component is
designed to stimulate professional coordination, innovation, strategic
planning and efficient governance at both sector and institutional levels
in higher education in BiH. Following creation of a Council of Higher
Education, a secretariat will be established under the Council with terms
of reference to focus on two objectives: 1) increased strategic planning
and institutional consolidation and 2) improved qualification and
accreditation systems. To provide incentives for strategic planning, a
Higher Education Fund will be established in the amount of $2.0 million.
The secretariat will be responsible for evaluating funding proposals and
recommending approval of proposals to the Council. Universities, entities
and cantons would be eligible to apply separately or jointly for Fund
financing. Improved qualification and accreditation systems will be
supported through provision of technical assistance and training to the
secretariat and a representative working group of academics from BiH. The
project will cover the costs of the Council and the secretariat on a
declining basis. Precise criteria for evaluating Fund proposals and terms
of reference for the accreditation work will be agreed at negotiations. A
set of priorities on which the criteria will be based are presented in
Annex 2.Disbursement under the Fund will be contingent on a decision to
formally create the Council of Higher Education either via State level
appointment or university level appointment of Council members. If such a
Council has not been created prior to project negotiations, a condition of
disbursements will be added for this component. Living Standards
Measurement Survey (US$ 0.6 million) -- The goal of this component is to
provide reliable data, for the entire country, on the levels and
determinants of welfare, the causes of observed social sector outcomes and
the incidence of public expenditures. Such data will be used to inform
the policy-making process and are expected to improve the effectiveness
and impact of public sector programs in the country. In addition, the
data will form the basis of much of the analysis required for creating a
Poverty Reduction Strategy for the country. The specific objectives of
the component are to carry out a Living Standard Measurement Study Survey,
create the capacity in the country to carry out such surveys and promote
the use of such data through wide dissemination of the results, the
various analyses of poverty, as well as the unit-record data sets. The
three organizations in the country which are responsible for statistics
(the Entity-level institutes of statistics in the Federation and the
Republica Srpska and the State Agency for Statistics) will work closely
together to design and implement an LSMS survey and disseminate both the
results of the survey and the data sets.    The entity level institutes
will be responsible for the actual implementation of the survey while the
state agency will help coordinate efforts and will be responsible for
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creating the final country-level data set. Co-financing for this activity
of US$500,000 will be provided by UNDP under a cost-sharing agreement, to
which the Government of BiH will contribute IDA funding under this
project. In addition, the LSMS survey is one element of a larger effort
to support the creation of a system of household surveys in the country
and will be able to take advantage of the other activities that are being
undertaken. Project Coordinating Units (US$1.0 million) - the current
PIUs in the Federation and RS, established to implement the first and
second Emergency Education Reconstruction Projects, will be transformed
into PCUs for each Entity. The Federation PCU will undertake a substantive
modification in its composition in order to incorporate new staff with
relevant profiles. The PCUs will be charged with managing contracting and
expenditure under the project and coordinating project activities. They
will be expected to share personnel support for coordinating the EMIS,
Higher Education and Quality Fund components.The project will finance PCU
staff salaries, as well as the basic operating expenditures of the PCU on
a declining basis, including recurrent office expenditures, vehicle
operation and maintenance costs, and travel and subsistence. A small
equipment replenishment budget will be available, but the majority of
equipment and vehicles needed under the project already exists in the
current PIUs and will be made available for use by the new PCUs.
5. Financing
Total ( US$m)
Government 2.1
IBRD
IDA 10.6
EUROPEAN COMMISSION 0.7
GOVERNMENT OF ITALY 1.2
Total Project Cost 14.6
6. Implementation
The project is expected to be implemented over a period of four years. As
with the first and second Emergency Education Reconstruction Projects, the
Education Development Project will be designed and implemented in two
parts, one for the Federation and one for RS. The respective Federation
and RS Ministries of Education will be the implementing agencies for the
project, although, in the Federation, Canton level Ministries of Education
and their respective Pedagogical Institutes will participate in project
implementation and be major beneficiaries of the project. The Federation
and RS Education Project Implementation Units will be transformed into
project coordination units to reflect the shift from reconstruction to
education and institutional development objectives. These PCUs will be
responsible for overall coordination, project management, financial
management arrangements, disbursements and organizing procurement.
Because the project will support common intermediary institutions and
implementation mechanisms between the Federation and RS, communication,
coordination and cooperation between the two project PCUs will be vital.
Joint technical assistance contracting and joint training exercises were
undertaken successfully under the ongoing project, and such inter-Entity
cooperation is not expect to pose a problem for project implementation.
For the LSMS, the PCUs will jointly manage a cost-sharing agreement with
UNDP. The two entity-level statistical institutes and the state agency
for statistics will participate in the project. Institutional and
implementation arrangements by components are as follows:Quality Fund: The
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Federation Minister and Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and
Sports and the RS Minister of Education have nominated a Quality Fund
Board for which terms of reference are included in the Project Operational
Manual (POM). The Board will meet quarterly to approve project proposals
to be financed under the Fund. The Board is supported by a single Fund
Coordinator, to be shared between the Federation and RS, for which terms
of reference are also included in the POM. The Fund Coordinator is
responsible for organizing and coordinating all Fund activities including
authorizing grant payments, guiding technical assistance and publicizing
the Fund. The Fund approach -- beginning with the small school grants
component -- is currently being piloted under Italian Trust Fund financing
in the Mostar canton (East and West) and the Banja Luka Municipality of
RS. Limited technical assistance will be contracted to assist in training
required in the cantons and RS to take the Fund to scale throughout BiH
and to conduct semi-annual quality and procurement evaluations of Fund
performance and outcomes (see the POM for terms of reference). Limited
funding will also be made available to conduct spot financial audits of
grant implementation at the same time that the overall financial audit of
the project is performed. The principal criterion for allocating funding
across the 10 cantons and RS will be the official number of primary
students enrolled in each canton and RS in the 1998-99 school year. The
Government of Italy has agreed to provide about $1.2 million in
Bank-managed co-financing to this component which will be used to cover
techncial assistance and training, and to make a contribution to the
Qulaity Fund.Standards and Assessment Agency: A Governing Board of the
Standards and Assessment Agency, for which terms of reference are
available in the POM, will be nominated by the Prime Ministers, including
some international representation, the cost of which will be covered under
the project. Once established, the Board will recruit the senior
management of the Agency and senior management will recruit technical
staff from throughout BiH (position descriptions for management and staff
are available in the POM). The Board will also approve a technical
assistance and training contracts, with assistance from the PCU, to
support the operations of the Agency in its first four years (see the POM
for terms of reference). The European Commission has agreed to provide
parallel financing in the amnount of about $400,000 over the first two
years of the project to cover techncial assistance and training
expenditures. A memorandum of understanding will be prepared with the EC
during negotiations. The Agency's Board will serve as the procurement
evaluation committee for any IDA-financed TA contract outside EC funding
in project years 3 and 4. The procurement of furniture and equipment will
be coordinated by the PCU Director and Procurement Officer in cooperation
with Agency management. Recurrent funding for the Agency will be budgeted
as part of each Entity's annual operational budget on the basis of two
thirds funding from the Federation and one third from RS.Education
Management Information Systems: The Federation Minister and Deputy
Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports and the RS Minister of
Education have nominated a BiH-wide EMIS Committee for which terms of
reference are included in the Project Operational Manual (POM). The
Committee will oversee the results of the two modules to be piloted in the
cantons and play a coordination and consensus building role in the design
and implementation of the roll out of EMIS modules throughout BiH. The
Committee will receive training under the pilots and be supported by
technical assistance to help design and implement the roll out (see terms
of reference in the POM). In addition, the the two PCUs will share a
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single EMIS Coordinator who would play a substantive secretariat and
liaison role for the Committee. If bi-lateral funding cannot be
identified to provide technical assistance, the Committee will serve as
the procurement evaluation committee for an IDA-financed TA contract. The
procurement of servers, computers and other office equipment to support
the EMIS in the cantons and RS will be coordinated by the Project
Financial Manager and Procurement Officer in cooperation with the
Committee. Higher Education Component: The Project will support the
establishment of an intermediary coordination capacity in a newly created
Council of Higher Education, and its Technical Secretariat. The Council
would be responsible for recruiting local academics, on a full time but
temporary basis, to staff the Technical Secretariat and, on a part time
basis, to staff a representative working group for accreditation. The
secretariat will be responsible for evaluating proposals against agreed
criteria to be financed under the Higher Education Fund and recommending
approval of proposals to the Council. The European Commission has agreed
to provide parallel financing in the amnount of about $400,000 over the
first two years of the project to cover techncial assistance and training
expenditures. A memorandum of understanding will be prepared with the EC
during negotiations. The Council will serve as the procurement evaluation
committee for any IDA-financed TA contract outside EC funding in project
years 3 and 4. Terms of reference for the technical assistance and
criteria for allocation of Fund proposals will be agreed at negotiations
and included in the POM.The Higher Education Fund will be managed by the
Technical Secretariat of the Council for Higher Education. This Technical
Unit will be supported for administrative matters only by the Higher
Education Fund Coordinator to be shared by the Federation and RS PCUs.
Terms of Reference for the Higher Education Fund Coordinator position are
included in the POM. The main duties of the Secretarit will be: (i) based
on agreed objectives, to prepare the Manual and Guidelines for the
Institutional Strengthening Subprojects to guide the development of
proposals to be presented by individual universities; (ii) to organize the
evaluation and award process; (iii) to provide technical support for the
preparation of the subprojects; (iv) to carry out supervision and
monitoring of the subprojects; (v) to consolidate the individual progress
reports periodically prepared by individual participating universities to
be presented to the Government and the Bank. The Fund Coordinator will be
responsible for: (i) carrying out the public dissemination campaign; (ii)
preparing contracts with the winning universities; (iii) reviewing
procurement procedures being carried out by individual universities to
assure compliance with World Bank guidelines; (iv) issuing periodic
payments on the basis of the contracts; (v) preparing semi-annual
financial reports on the status of disbursements and commitments for both
Entities; and (vi) providing relevant financial information to the annual
financial auditors of the Project. Each winning university will implement
its approved subproject following World Bank guidelines for procurement
and disbursement of funds.Living Standards Measurement Survey:     An
inter-institutional committee, comprised of members of the two
entity-level statistical institutes and the State Agency for Statistics,
will be constituted and chaired by UNDP. This committee will form the
base for technical and logistical coordination among the three statistical
organizations. The main tasks of this committee will be to: (i) liase
with a Data Users' Committee which is being formed as part of a larger
efforts to support household surveys and the use of data in policy making;
(ii) based on agreed objectives, develop the inputs required for the
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design of the survey, develop terms of reference for technical assistance,
approve all survey documents (questionnaires, manuals, field work methods)
and ensure the creation of the final, country-level data set and its broad
dissemination, as well as dissemination of analytic results. To
facilitate the close coordination required for the successful completion
of the activities under this component, a cost-sharing agreement will be
entered into between the Government and UNDP, under which UNDP will
provide US$500,000 in co-financing and the Government will contribute
$600,000 in IDA funding.
7. Sustainability
The following factors will influence the sustainability of the proposed
project: (a) political stability and constituent group coopeeration:
related to the likelihood of the constituent groups participating fully in
intermediary institutions and shared management mechanisms (b)
macroeconomic growth: related to capacity to adequately fund public
education; a growth environment will also facilitate constituent group
cooperation and coordination (c) government willingness to use information
produced by the project to focus resource allocation on efficiency and
equity issues (d) success in building capacity at all levels to monitor
and evaluate sector performance
8. Lessons learned from past operations in the country/sector
See Implementation Completion Report for the Emergency Education
Reconstruction Project.Rapid reconstruction has medium term cost in terms
of delayed policy and institutional reform. The ongoing focus on
reconstruction and the unresolved uncertainty about government roles
created under Dayton is hampering the restoration of an efficient and
sustainable education system. It is also delaying key decisions about
needed reforms in the structure, orientation, management, and financing of
secondary and higher education. Better communication and coordination
among donors and different levels of government is essential within the
Federation and between Entities. Mechanisms to strengthen communications
among all parties - particularly in the areas of shared educational
standards, curriculum and educational materials -- deserve priority
attention. However, compromises on the part of donors will be necessary
in view of significant preferences on the part of beneficiaries (students,
teachers, parents, etc. to differentiate language throughout
BiH).Reconstruction in many areas cannot proceed effectively without
progress in addressing key policy issues in the sector. Moving ahead on
reconstruction in secondary and higher education will require policy
decisions soon on the goals and content of these programs. Finally, it
will take time before parties to the conflict accept the role education
must play in promoting reconciliation. Although there are some promising
initiatives in communication within the Federation and between the
Federation and RS, these are ad hoc ventures at the moment. Continuing
sensitivities on the language issue suggest that progress will be slow and
uneven.
9. Program of Targeted Intervention (PTI)     N
10. Environment Aspects (including any public consultation)
Issues     :  No adverse environment effects are anticipated in
this project that focuses on institutional development.
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11. Contact Point:
Task Manager
James A. Stevens
The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW
Washington D.C. 20433
Telephone:   (202) 473-2848
12. For information on other project related documents contact:
The InfoShop
The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20433
Telephone: (202) 458-5454
Fax:        (202) 522-1500
Web: http:// www.worldbank.org/infoshop
Note: This is information on an evolving project. Certain components may
not be necessarily included in the final project.
Processed by the InfoShop week ending April 21, 2000.
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