IBRD Loan: US$700 million
Terms: Maturity = 17 years; Grace = 17.5 years
Project ID: P112262
Project Description: The loan will support ongoing upper secondary education reform program, focusing in particular on obstacles to increasing the numbers and skill level of graduates entering the labor market. The reform seeks to improve the quality and relevance of higher secondary education and increase the number of graduates to attain a better-trained labor force that contributes to the country’s economic growth, while it delivers the skills needed by graduates later on in life. This shift is the outcome of national consultations with all the key stakeholders in upper secondary education and reflects reforms that have already been introduced in some sub-systems. This loan will help reduce the opportunity cost of upper secondary education: to reduce opportunity costs for the poorest, the Secretariat of Public Education (Secretaria de Educacion Publica, SEP), in coordination with the Oportunidades program, consolidated the existing upper secondary scholarship program while expanding its coverage to more than 250,000 students from poor households.
