Report No. PID9440 Project Name Guinea-Pre-Service Teacher Education... Project (LIL) Region Africa Sector Education Project ID GNPE57188 Borrower Government of Guinea Implementing Agencies Ministry of Pre-University Education and Ministry of Technical and Professional Education Date PID Prepared August 24, 2000 Projected Appraisal May 1998 Approval Date May 1998 Board Date July 15, 1998 1. Country and Sector Background Country Background. Guinea is richly endowed with agricultural and mineral resources. Its rainfall regime is reliable; the climatic variety of its natural regions means that a wide range of crops and livestock can be raised; and, in addition to iron ore and bauxite, the country has gold and diamond bearing formations that have recently attracted the attention of foreign mining companies. Nevertheless, economic performance since independence in 1958 has been poor. In the early part of the decade, the country was consistently ranked last by the United Nations Report on Human Development. GNP per capita is significantly higher than the average for Sub-Saharan Africa ($560 vs. $490), but social indicators are uniformly worse. Sector Background. Under a Statement of Education Sector Policy issued in May 1995, the government committed itself to: (a) shifting resources toward primary education, with a view to increasing the gross primary enrollment rate to 53 % by 2000 (up from 29 percent in 1990); (b) enhancing educational quality through a series of innovative school- based initiatives, including textbook rental, in-service teacher training, student health and nutrition and detailed appraisal of student learning; and (c) restructuring and streamlining higher education to respond to changing employment priorities and tighter budget constraints. Since that time, it has made real progress toward these goals. Gross primary enrollment is expected to exceed 53% this year, some two years ahead of schedule. The government has also generally succeeded in shifting the focus of reform efforts to the school level, and has put in place most of the planned school-based initiatives. Hiring of new teachers has been sporadic, but has generally kept pace with initial plans, with 1600 new teachers hired in 1998. The restructuring of higher education as announced in the government's draft Statement of Policy for Higher Education (March 1995) was to entail the introduction of measures to improve quality and relevance, cost recovery, a decrease in total scholarships, increases in teaching loads, and increased investment in improved communications and information systems. These changes are now beginning to be implemented. 2. Project Objectives The main purpose of the project is to enable the country to respond in the short term to the need for unprecedented numbers of new teachers by testing and piloting an innovative, low-cost approach to teacher training which would ensure quality through school-based monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of teacher performance. 3. Project Description The project would explore a new approach to teacher education: the recruitment of high school graduates (non-graduates are currently recruited), followed by an intensive, academic year-long program focusing on classroom practice, with student-teachers spending 30-40- of their time in primary school classrooms. This program would be followed by a year-long student-teaching internship, during which student- teachers would be supported by teacher mentors and pedagogic advisors. Support would be provided to Guinean teacher education institutions from similar institutions in Canada, France or Belgium, for staff and program development, monitoring and evaluation and the development of modular, credit-granting in-service training. This in-service training will eventually be linked to the career advancement of teachers, and would be a major innovation in the development of a professional, stable teaching corps. In the medium term, teachers would be provided with vouchers which could then be used at the training institution or in the training program of their choice, including private, accredited programs. 4. Project Financing The project is expected to 'cost about US$ 4 million and would be financed by IDA with possible participation of USAID. The project would also launch new systems of contract based teacher recruitment and career development linked to performance and skill upgrading, enhancing teacher productivity. 5. Project Implementation The Ministry of Technical and Professional Training is responsible for pre-service training in Guinea. The Ministry of Pre-University Education handles in-service teacher training. Since an explicit goal of the project is to bring the pre-service and in-service training programs into the same classroom-based perspective, project implementation will be carried out through a joint steering committee comprised of the various department heads in the two ministries. This committee would have overall responsibility for execution of the various project components, but activities would be managed to the extent feasible at the decentralized level. The steering committee would approve semi- annual action plans and annual budgets prepared by the regional education directorates, which would be responsible for implementing the majority of activities. The project coordinator and all of the staff would be civil servants, paid under the civil service. Finances and payment requests would initially be managed by the Finance Directorate - 2- (DAF) for Pre-University Education, now responsible for managing the education sector reform program, including the Bank-financed Equity and School Improvement Project (PASE2). Every effort will be made throughout project implementation to help define the responsibilities of the two ministries in ways that are complementary and avoid duplication of services. The M&E system, in addition to evaluating teacher classroom performance, will systematically monitor capacity building. 6. Project Benefits The major external benefit of the project would be to upgrade the quality of education by testing a cost-effective new program designed to supply the large numbers of teachers required for expansion of the system. This innovative approach will triple the capacity of Guinea's teacher education institutions, allowing the country to increase the teacher stock by at least 2000 teachers every year. The project would also help to reduce gender and regional disparities. The major internal benefits would be to improve the quality of teaching and learning by ensuring a pool of qualified teacher candidates; to enhance the quality of in-service training by linking it more carefully to classroom practice, making it competitive and linking it to career advancement; and to increase the efficiency of the system by reducing dropout and repetition rates (it now takes more than 20 student-years to produce a primary education graduate). The project will prepare the development of Guinea's ambitious Education For All project, now planned for FY2000. 7. Project Risks A risk is that the system will be unable to upgrade management capacity quickly enough prepare the large numbers of new teachers and to ensure that materials and supplies are available in a timely fashion. This is being addressed through an emphasis on management capacity building and careful institutional assessment. An additional risk is the failure of government to reach agreement on the many parameters of the new contract-based decentralized teaching force. This innovative program has been discussed with the teachers' unions, with the national teacher training authorities and with parents. The proposed PPF will deepen participation by financing additional workshops on implementation and evaluation measures. 8. Project Sustainability The biggest issue in terms of sustainability is that of financing teacher salaries. Salary costs for the teachers to be trained under this project are in line with the projected annual allocations agreed under the ESAF and the Public Expenditure Management Credit (PEMA). The new budget systems put in place by the latter, notably the medium-term expenditure framework, will permit timely budgeting and monitoring of expenditures. Economic analysis will be conducted to assess the cost- effectiveness of this program, and a guide is also being developed to aid technicians and politicians in the preparation of the Education For All phase of Guinea's sector reform program, for which teacher financing will be the critical element. Long-term sustainability will depend on the capacity of Guinea to - 3 - finance an important expansion both in the number of teachers and in the recurrent costs associated with this expansion. This will require an increase in the portion of the budget going to the education sector over the medium term, an internal reallocation within the sector in favor of primary education and a reduction in the unit cost of a teacher. This in turn requires up-front agreements with all of the major actors involved, including notably the teachers' unions. Guinea's many accomplishments in the sector during the 1990s (the number of students in primary school has tripled), and the country's decisions to move towards a contract teaching force and to decrease the cost of teacher training are important indications of the government's commitment to the expansion of the sector. 9. Lessons learned from past operations in the country/sector Participatory approaches and an emphasis on capacity building have proven to be the key to past success in the sector. This project is based on demand from actors at all levels of the system, from teachers to the Ministers of Education. Project preparation will include the participation of all stakeholders. 10. Poverty Category This project will increase access to education for girls, for rural children and for poor children, by increasing the supply of teachers. The quality of instruction and of student learning is expected to improve as the new programs are implemented, thus increasing the efficiency of the system and consequently freeing capacity for additional students. 11. Environmental Aspects Justification/Rationale for category C rating: The project is not expected to have any negative environmental impact. 12. Program Objectives Categories The proposed project corresponds to the human resource development and poverty alleviation objectives of the Government. Contact Point The InfoShop The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 458-5454 Fax: (202) 522-1500 This PID processed by the InfoShop during the week ending August 25, 2000 - 4 -