The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) Note to Task Teams: The following sections are system generated and can only be edited online in the Portal. Project Information Document/ Integrated Safeguards Data Sheet (PID/ISDS) Concept Stage | Date Prepared/Updated: 20-Dec-2016 | Report No: PIDISDSC19742 Dec 14, 2016 Page 1 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) BASIC INFORMATION A. Basic Project Data OPS TABLE Country Project ID Parent Project ID (if any) Project Name Madagascar P160442 Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) Region Estimated Appraisal Date Estimated Board Date Practice Area (Lead) AFRICA Aug 28, 2017 Dec 14, 2017 Education Financing Instrument Borrower(s) Implementing Agency Investment Project Financing Ministry of Finance and Ministry of National Budget Education Proposed Development Objective(s) The project supports the implementation of key elements of the government's sector plan to improve learning and completion of primary education Financing (in USD Million) Finance OLD Financing Source Amount EFA-FTI Education Program Development Fund 46.80 International Development Association (IDA) 55.00 Total Project Cost 101.80 Environmental Assessment Category Concept Review Decision B-Partial Assessment Track II-The review did authorize the preparation to continue Note to Task Teams: End of system generated content, document is editable from here. Other Decision (as needed) Dec 14, 2016 Page 2 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) B. Introduction and Context Country Context 1. Madagascar is an island nation with unparalleled biodiversity and many natural assets . It is a country with great potential, but is prone to natural disasters and recurrent political crises. The country suffers one of the highest levels of poverty in Africa, with extreme poverty having increased in recent years. It is one of eight countries in the world, for which data are available, which have lower per capita income in 2010 than in 1960. Extreme poverty rose from 68.7 percent in 2001 to 82.0 percent of the population in 2010 and then fell slightly to 77.8 percent in 2012 (the latest data available). Inequality in Madagascar is similar to that of other low-income countries, but it diminished strongly between 2001 and 2012. The Gini coefficient was 0.41 in 2012, similar to the low-income country average of 0.40. The poverty gap, at approximately 40 percent (2010 figures) is substantially worse than the mean for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) of 16.5, reflecting the depth of Madagascar’s poverty. 2. Madagascar’s development challenges can be grouped around five themes (World Bank 2015, Strategic Country Diagnostics Madagascar): (i) Improving its poor governance, which partially finds its origin in poor dynamics among economic elites and political instability. Madagascar is classified as “fragile�. The end of the most recent political crisis in 2013 marks an opportunity for the country to turn the corner. However, political instability remains a risk, including frequent change of governments. This challenges long term planning and implementation, and raises the importance of building resilience and capacity at the community level; (ii) Strengthening public finance, including better revenue collection, but also re-instituting budget oversight mechanisms to create greater accountability and better performance on the expenditure side, and to mobilize non-state resources for development through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs); (iii) Instituting policies that help unleash the private sector potential; (iv) Tackling poverty in particular improving the lives of the rural poor through a focus on agriculture and protection from natural disasters; and (v) Aiming for higher human capital, notably support the poorest in accessing and completing quality primary education, basic health, and nutrition, including through the scale-up of a social protection policy. 3. Attainment of education is closely related to poverty reduction in Madagascar, as it is across the globe. In 2010, 75 out of 100 children without education were in a situation of extreme poverty. For individuals with primary education, extreme poverty declines to 59 out of 100, and only 33 out of 100 with some level of secondary education are in extreme poverty. Education is also found to increase labor force participation, higher technology absorption, delay the age of marriage and teenage pregnancies, reduce fertility and raise healthy children, and raise government accountability. The key challenge is therefore to raise the education level of the Madagascar population with a strong focus on improving access to quality, improve retention and better completion rate in primary education in order to contribute to poverty reduction. Dec 14, 2016 Page 3 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) Sectoral and Institutional Context 4. Education in Madagascar is currently divided into six sub-sectors: (a) Preschool, (b) five years of primary education, (c) four years of lower secondary, (d) three years of upper secondary. These four sub-sectors are governed by the Ministry of National Education and cater to 4.6 million learners; (e) a smaller TVET sub-sector catering for 40,000 is steered by the Ministry of Technical Education and Vocational Training, and (f) the higher education sub-sector enrolling 107,000 students in 2014. The higher education sub-sector is overseen by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The recently completed education sector review describes the basic statistics on education in Madagascar. 5. Education is in a dire state in Madagascar. The key challenge is to raise completion of primary education with an emphasis on improving learning among primary students. In 2015, 221,990 learners passed the end of primary school exam (CEPE, 68% pass rate), while 362,884 started the last year of primary education (CM2).This results in a primary completion rate of 66%, which is above the average in sub-Saharan Africa (63 percent). About 1.4 million children are estimated to be out of primary school in 2012. In international comparison, the out of school population is the 5th largest in the world. There is no gender difference in enrollment across income-quintile or regions in primary education. A gender difference in access opens up at the secondary education level. 6. Learning outcomes are low from an international perspective. Nationally, the pass rate at the CEPE exams hovered around 70 percent in the last decade with no trend. However, learning in the African francophone assessment of PASEC has declined from 1998 to 2014. In 2014, only 19 percent of learners in 2nd grade read at “sufficient level�. This was among the top performers in 1998, but in 2014, Malagasy students only performed better than their peers in Niger and Chad (for both math and reading). The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) equally shows low learning – 24 correct words in Malagasy in 2nd grade, compared to 50+ in Indonesia, the US and other high income countries. However, both the EGRA and the Service Delivery Indicators (SDI) learning assessment indicate that Malagasy children more or less read and calculate at the same low level as the average Anglophone African child. Across the learning assessments, there are consistent and large differences between learners attending school in rural areas and those in urban settings. Across regions, learners in Analamanga region (where Antananarivo is located) perform better. There are 1-3 percent points differences between girls and boys in national and international learning assessment, in most cases girls learn slightly more. Across the assessments, Malagasy children seem to learn math better than reading (Malagasy and French), and lastly students in private schools learn more. Dec 14, 2016 Page 4 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) 7. Improving learning of students in primary education requires addressing several systemic shortcomings: the level of preparedness of entrants to primary schools, teacher effectiveness, language of instruction, and availability of didactic material. The following paragraphs describe each of these shortcomings as opportunities to improve school completion: (i) Raising the level of school readiness of new students into school. Many children in Madagascar develop insufficiently in the early years. 35% of pregnant women have low height and 16% low BMI. The stunting rate of children is 43%. This malnutrition and poor health is combined with low stimulation of babies and children aged 0 to 5 years old. Only 14 percent of children attends pre-school. As a consequence, children arrive poorly prepared for school at the age of 6. Further, there is substantial enrolment of over-age and under-age children leading to heterogeneous classes. Children who attended pre-school are statistically significantly more likely to reach an acceptable level of reading by 2nd grade (EGRA finding). This important impact of pre- school is extensively corroborated by international evidence. The constraints for expansion of Early Childhood Development (ECD) are primarily financial and secondarily a lack of capacity and awareness of its importance. Public financing of ECD is 0.4 percent of the public budget which should be increased, but with the level of future available financing taking into account other competing public expenditures, a significant expansion of public provision is unlikely. Therefore a sustainable, but slower, expansion of pre-school should principally be financed by families’ contributions and scaled up through community-based approaches, of which there are several in Madagascar. The government should enable and provide start up and quality support and supervision. (ii) Raising effectiveness of the teacher in the classroom. Ample international evidence shows that the teacher’s effort and capacity is the most important factor of learning among students. If correctly designed and implemented, teacher training on content relevant pedagogy is a sustainable and cost-effective intervention. In Madagascar, teacher effectiveness and management offers several opportunities for improvement, but neither is administratively or politically easy due to the fact that 65,000 teachers out of 108,000 in primary education are short-term contract teachers hired by the parent-teacher association (FRAM in Malagasy) and have no formal teacher training, only partially subsidized by the state, and with irregular payments.  Teacher pedagogical approach and subject knowledge.  Teachers’ class-room presence is only 4.0 hours per day. The qualified civil servant teachers are underrepresented in rural schools.  Availability of textbooks.  Language of instruction. (iii) Beyond learning, ensuring enrolment of all school-age children and reducing drop out and repetition is necessary to raise school completion. Four out of ten children in primary Dec 14, 2016 Page 5 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) school drop out before the last grade. A distressing and persistent share of one fifth (20%) of learners repeat their class every year in public schools (only 7% in private schools). Unsurprisingly, it tends to be learners from disadvantaged backgrounds who repeat and drop out. In SSA, the average repetition rate is 10 percent. International evidence shows that repetition does not lead to better learning for the repeaters, but to earlier exits. Automatic promotion is in principle an existing government policy, but it is not applied or enforced.  Distance to school is important for access and retention.  School management is not focused on improvements, supporting teachers, or holding them accountable.  The out-of-pocket costs reduces demand for schooling.  Lastly, the school calendar is not linked with the agriculture and weather seasons. 8. Private schooling is very common in Madagascar, but primarily serves well-off and urban learners. 18.7% of learners at the primary level are in private primary schools. Financially, the government underinvests in education and could achieve better outcomes with this expenditure. Madagascar spent on average 3.1 percent of GDP compared to 3.7 in SSA developing countries (LDCs) and 3.4 in low-income countries (LICs) The Government has pledged to raise this to 20 percent for the duration of the Sectoral Plan. Primary education receives 42 percent of the education budget. Besides, the low level of investments, there are at least three ways to achieve better outcomes with the expenditure: (i) Increase support to preschool, currently 0.4% of the budget; (ii) increase regularity of payment of teacher salaries and fully respect the contractual payments. This is critical to avoid strikes, and (iii) increase share of funding being decentralized to schools. The Bank is working with Ministries of Public Function to increase regularity of payments, and the EU is supporting the development of medium-term budget framework and both supported increased fiscal decentralization. There is a risk of the government over-committing expenditures due to politically promised teacher hires and insufficient capacity for financial planning and expenditure. 9. The Government is finalizing its Education Sector Plan for 2017-2021. The Education plan is nested within the government’s National Development Plan 2015-19 which seeks to reach “development through inclusive and sustainable growth, taking into account the spatial dimension�. Substantial efforts have gone into the development of the education plan in terms of diagnostics, consultation, planning, and coordination both across ministries and within the Ministry of National Education (MEN) as well as with civil society and development partners. 10. The development partners, including AFD, PASSOBA-EU, JICA, Unicef and Unesco, offer substantial experience and capacity to build upon through on-going projects in preschool and primary education. Unicef is the coordinating agency which is compiling a map of interventions of development partners. Due to the crisis situation, development partners focused on specific regions, which to a certain extent created duplications in the thematic areas of support to primary education (teacher training, construction, etc.). This plan will seek to move away from the regional-approach Dec 14, 2016 Page 6 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) towards a country wide approach. There is a strong interest in better coordination, a plan of partner activities, and possibly a common fund will be prepared for the sector plan and this project. Relationship to CPF 11. The Bank’s Country Partnership Framework for 2017 - 21 with Madagascar is under preparation and has strengthened Human development with a focus on early years as the first objective under the “increased resilience and sustainability� focus area. This proposed operation is included under this first objective, but equally benefits from and contributes to attainment of the other three objectives under the focus area: Enhanced resiliency of the vulnerable, Enhanced Decentralization and enhanced Transparency and accountability. Therefore, this operation represents a sweet spot for the Bank within a strategy of improving human development and public service delivery. The operation builds upon experience, analysis, tools and close government collaboration within nutrition, social protection and public sector management. Especially within the yearly years, will this proposed operation seeks to build upon communities, nutrition centers and mother leaders groups, supported in the nutrition and social protection operations. These communities focuses primarily on the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, while this operation will enable the communities to start more activities for stimulation and development for the child’s next 1000 days (3-5 years). Second, the proposed project has three synergies with the Bank’s governance analysis and operation (PAPSP project): (i) help the government manage selected public civil servants better, notably teachers, including HR deployment payment and accountability; (ii) decentralization of funds to and higher local government and community involvement in the delivery of public services, in this case the schools.; and (iii) joint analysis and planning of how communication can become a tool for improved service delivery and behavioral change. C. Proposed Development Objective(s) Note to Task Teams: The PDO has been pre-populated from the datasheet for the first time for your convenience. Please keep it up to date whenever it is changed in the datasheet. The project supports the implementation of key elements of the government's sector plan to improve learning and completion of primary education Key Results (From PCN) It is currently proposed that progress towards the Project Development Objective could be measured by: 1. Number of learners completing primary education (passing the CEPE) 2. Number of new entrants into pre-school as a result of this project 3. Improved teaching techniques by teachers trained as observed through class-room observations (to be defined further) 4. Progression rate of learners in the first three classes in primary education 5. Number of learners enrolled in classrooms constructed by the project Dec 14, 2016 Page 7 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) D. Concept Description 12. The proposed project concept builds upon six principles agreed with the Ministry of Education: (i) The project should be fully aligned with the Education Sector Plan and as such support government programs within education that will continue beyond the project-life and be co-financed with government budget; (ii) the project will have a national scope compared to previous project which focused on specific regions due to the political crises; (iii) only a few interventions should be pursued to ensure adequate implementation capacity; (iv) the Ministry of Education will implement the project through its departments and where capacity requirements are called for, an implementation unit will assume the fiduciary and administrative responsibility, (v) community-based approaches raise sustainability, capacity, and impact of activities and should be pursued as a complement to government system building. This is pursued as a cross-cutting objective in each component; and (vi) a segment of the project financing will be disbursed through Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs). A. Component 1: Support the Plan to improve access and quality of pre-school/ early childhood education. This plan seeks to raise school readiness of school starting children. The objective is to increase access to pre-school and to raise the quality of teaching-learning in preschool. The plan will seek to expand community organized and private pre-schools given the exceedingly small government budget for ECD. Further, a plan will be developed to improve quality of preschool, which could include activities aimed at applying good standards to pre-schools, training and certification of pre-school teachers, and support to low-cost material, such as toys, for stimulation and learning. This plan will also take advantage of the community approaches implemented within nutrition and social protection. B. Component 2: Support the Plan to Improve Teacher Effectiveness. This plan seeks to contribute to student learning by improving teacher effectiveness through enhanced teacher competences and management/motivation. First, the plan will increase teacher competences of contract and FRAM teacher who did not benefit from pre-service education. This training will target improved pedagogical competences of teachers as well as subject-wise training. It will build upon on-going pilots for face-to-face short term pedagogical training and distance education. Secondly, the plan will support the Ministry in better management of teachers. In particular, the plan seeks to deploy teacher more equitably across the schools and support an orderly and transparent process of contracting and integrating contract teachers into a career framework that provides incentives for demonstrating basic teacher competences and professional development. Lastly, the Plan will support the Ministry to reduce the hiring of new teachers who have not undergone pre-service training. Teacher Effectiveness will equally be enhanced through better school management which will increase accountability of teachers and increase teachers’ time in the class. Dec 14, 2016 Page 8 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) C. Component 3: Support the Plan to enhance school-based management with community involvement. The objective is twofold: (i) to support the school director, the inclusive school- board (FEFFI) and the local support system (ZAP and CISCO) to achieve better outcomes for that particular school; and (ii) to raise access to primary schools through construction of new schools and classrooms to lower the distance to school and reduce serious overcrowding, in particular for rural and poor communities. On the first objective, the plan will seek to increase learners’ progression in the first three years of primary education (reduce drop out and repetition) and learning. The key indicators could be promotion rates in the first three years, teacher presence in the classroom, and presence of the director in the school. These outcomes would be pursued by a two pronged approach: (i) establishing participatory school boards (FEFFI) and supporting them developing and implementing School improvement plans informed by the school cards and financed by school grant. The aim is to increase community involvement into the school to raise local accountability and inform the school leadership about the performance of the school through the school board and financed a focused plan to raise performance, notably progression and learning; and (ii) professionalizing the local school and teacher support system (Zone Administrative et Pedagogique, ZAP, and Circonscription Scolaire, CISCO). This professionalization seeks to improve the support to schools and teachers and to raise accountability for this support. The professionalization of the support staff (local inspectors and pedagogical advisers) entails setting terms of reference (fiche de poste), standards, desirable experience and recruitment standards, and a capacity building scheme. Importantly, these would be tailored around the support to improve school-based management, teaching, and adminsitration. On the second objective, the plan will seek to increase access of learners to and retention from schools. The key indicator is number of learners enrolled in newly constructed classrooms. The plan will improve the existing and successful community-based school construction program. An on-going institutional and technical review will inform a strengthening of the program. This community-approach is one way to ensure a solid involvement of the community in the school management. The selection of villages and sites for new schools will informed by an on-going school mapping combined with a bottom-up process. The selection process and criteria will be defined clearly and consulted upon as part of the preparations. The school sites should be identified by project approval to ensure timely construction. D. Component 4: Support the Plan for Capacity building and administration activities. These activities seek to build ministerial and decentralized capacity for the implementation of the above plans, support the implementation of the sector plan through policy and evaluative studies, and administrative costs, including communication costs. This includes: (i) at least one survey of service delivery indicators; (ii) analytical and potential implementation support to increase mother tongue as the language of instruction in primary education and for gradually modifying the school calendar; (iii) support for studies and implementation plans for the Dec 14, 2016 Page 9 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) envision expansion of lower secondary (3rd cycle); (iv) funding for project implementation administrative costs, including the UAT, training, fiduciary consultancies, technical assistance, community empowerment and operational cost, and (v) A national information campaign on the sector plan and the goals. The above component descriptions are brief at this concept stage. The specific activities will be developed and further consulted upon as of the preparations. Note to Task Teams: The following sections are system generated and can only be edited online in the Portal. SAFEGUARDS A. Project location and salient physical characteristics relevant to the safeguard analysis (if known) This is a national level project. A part of the financing will finance school rehabilitation and construction in accordance with the priorities of the education sector plan. The villages and sites of school construction will be evaluated, selected, and screened prior to project effectiveness. The constructions will follow the national standards and are expected to be contracted and supervised through local communities. As such the construction will follow the same model as the on- going project (PAUET). The project is expected to have no major negative environmental or social impact. Localized small scale impacts may occur if not managed properly or with insufficient mitigating actions. Therefore, the environmental category is B and two policies are triggered: OP/BP 4.01 (environmental assessment) and OP/BP 4.12 (Involuntary Resettlement). B. Borrower’s Institutional Capacity for Safeguard Policies The government has available institutional capacity and safeguards tools to manage the safeguards policies, but a strengthening action plan will be agreed and implemented as part of the preparations. The construction and safeguard policies are managed by the UAT-EPT (Unité d’Appui Technique à l’Education pour Tous) which will continue to be tasked with the safeguards compliance. The action plan will at least contain two actions drawn from the experience of the on- going project : (i) local training of contractors and communities in the application and supervision of the safeguards policies; (ii) update of safeguard tools (Environment and social safeguards management framework) and resettlement policy framework before the consultation and disclosure. This will take place prior to the appraisal of the project. C. Environmental and Social Safeguards Specialists on the Team Paul-Jean Feno, Peter F. B. A. Lafere, Marina Rachel Gery Ramaroson D. Policies that might apply Safeguard Policies Triggered? Explanation (Optional) OP 4.01 is triggered because of the potential Environmental Assessment OP/BP 4.01 Yes environmental impacts resulting from project activities Dec 14, 2016 Page 10 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) to build/rehabilitate classroom in the existing school site. However, those impacts are expected to be minimal, site-specific and manageable to an accepted level. Due to the difficulty inherent in defining what the real environmental impacts of envisioned sub- projects are, and determining what mitigation measures to put in place, an Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) will be developed. The ESMF will formulate standard methods and procedures, along with institutional arrangements for screening, review, approval and implementation and monitoring of specific EMPs, including the preparation of environmental clauses to be inserted in contractors’ bidding documents. The ESMF will be disclosed in-country and at Bank InfoShop, upon review and clearance by ASPEN, prior to Decision meeting. There is no natural habitat site located in the potential Natural Habitats OP/BP 4.04 No sub-project classroom locations. Forests OP/BP 4.36 No There is no vegetation in the potential classroom site. Pest Management OP 4.09 No The project will not purchase or use pesticides. This policy is not expected to be triggered. No physical Physical Cultural Resources OP/BP 4.11 No cultural resources are located in existing potential school areas. There are no Indigenous Peoples living in Madagascar. Indigenous Peoples OP/BP 4.10 No The policy is therefore not triggered. The project interventions will avoid where possible adverse impacts on people, land and other economic resources and livelihoods. In situations where this cannot be avoided, the Borrower will prepare a Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) to address the needs of persons who will be affected by loss of Involuntary Resettlement OP/BP 4.12 Yes economic activities, access to resources, land acquisition and/or involuntary resettlement. The RPF will be disclosed in-country and at Bank InfoShop, upon review and clearance by the Bank, prior to Decision Meeting. This policy is not expected to be triggered by any of Safety of Dams OP/BP 4.37 No the project activities as the project will not be financing any activities related to dams. Projects on International Waterways This policy is not expected to be triggered by any of No OP/BP 7.50 the project activities and Madagascar is an Island. Dec 14, 2016 Page 11 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) This policy is not expected to be triggered by any of Projects in Disputed Areas OP/BP 7.60 No the project activities. E. Safeguard Preparation Plan Tentative target date for preparing the Appraisal Stage PID/ISDS Apr 14, 2017 Time frame for launching and completing the safeguard-related studies that may be needed. The specific studies and their timing should be specified in the Appraisal Stage PID/ISDS The proposed project is classified as a Category B project according to the Bank safeguard policy on Environmental Assessment (OP/BP 4.01). Since the location of the sub-projects to be financed is not yet known, the borrower should prepare an Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) and a Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF). These documents will be disclosed in-country and on the Bank’s Infoshop prior the project in Decision Meeting. Draft Time line for assessment: (i) Environment assessment start Jan 9-13 – next mission (ii) Completion end February at the national level (iii) Consultation on safeguards tools March and disclosure by April (iv) Draft selection of school site is expected to be available by April CONTACT POINT World Bank Andreas Blom Lead Economist Borrower/Client/Recipient Ministry of Finance and Budget Gervais Rakotoarimanana Minister rakgervais@blueline.mg Implementing Agencies Dec 14, 2016 Page 12 of 13 The World Bank Madagascar Basic Education Support Project (P160442) Ministry of National Education Rolland Rabeson Secretary General justetrabeson@gmail.com FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 473-1000 Web: http://www.worldbank.org/projects APPROVAL Task Team Leader(s): Andreas Blom Approved By APPROVALTBL Practice Manager/Manager: Tobias Linden 28-Dec-2016 Country Director: Mark R. Lundell 02-Jun-2017 Note to Task Teams: End of system generated content, document is editable from here. Dec 14, 2016 Page 13 of 13