OSI & MoE partnership within Education reform

Background

The goals of the Education Reform Program is are to maximize learning achievements for all students to meet the needs of a market economy and improve efficiency of general education.

The Government of Azerbaijan (GOA) is committed to sectoral reforms in the education sector, based on the Education Reform Program of 1999, the draft Ten-Year Education Reform Strategy, and the Government's Letter of Sector Development Policy to improve the quality and relevance of general education and improve efficiency of general education. The GOA has asked the World Bank for help in implementing this reform program. The Program includes many issues, some of which need to be prioritised on the basis of additional analytical work. The longer-term perspective of an Adaptable Program Credit (APC) would provide the Government with support to carry out a system wide reform, while providing the flexibility to adjust and refine interventions on an on-going basis. An APC would also facilitate the development of a comprehensive and coherent system vision with policy links to other levels of education (i.e., teacher education, vocational education, tertiary level education). Treating such items as possible components of the Second and Third Phases of an APC would also serve to retain a simple First Phase APC while maintaining Government expectations for long-term sector support.

The development objective of the First Phase of the Program is to strengthen capacity to plan and manage the reform program more effectively and efficiently and initiate the highest priority investments, focused on the poor in selected districts. The First Phase of the APC will focus on a set of key issues in general education, namely:

         i.            Quality improvement (through curricullium reform, teacher education, provision of textbooks and learning materials, school improvement, and information and communication technology);

       ii.            Efficiency and financing (through financing and budgeting reforms and rationalization);

      iii.            Equity and access to general education (through school grants, focused on the poor);

     iv.            Management strengthening (through student assessment, management information systems, management and policy capacity).

Phase I of the APC would support reforms at the national level (e.g., curriculum reform, teacher training, development and provision of textbooks and reading materials, student assessment, and management and planning capacity) and a set of specific interventions and reforms in three pilot districts (e.g., school rationalization and improvement, efficiency and budgetary reforms, school grants).

Planned steps within 10 years under Education reform project are as follows:

Ten-year Project will be divided into two phases: 4 years and 6 years, respectively. Expected budget is $14 million and $ 50 million correspondingly.
Government of Azerbaijan and the WB are going to implement first phase stage of Education reform Project in 2004-2007
The government is expected to contribute $ 15 million to support the reform
Rationale of OSI involvement

To explore the opportunities of participating in Education Reform Project as a partner organization;
To contribute to education reforms through its existing resources/expertise/know-how in this field
To strength the institutional capacity of OSI educational expertise
OSI will specifically provide Technical Expertise in three components of Education Reform Project:

1.      Textbooks and other reading materials

2.      Improving Equity and Access of the Poor to Education

3.      ICT application in schools