WASHINGTON, September 10, 2015 — The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved today a US$11 million (currently about €9.8 million) credit for the Kosovo Education System Improvement Project (ESIP) that aims at strengthening selected systems that contribute to quality, accountability, and efficiency improvements in education in the Republic of Kosovo.
The project builds on the achievements of previous support provided by the World Bank and focuses on system-level improvements to enable stronger management, effective and evidence-based policy-making and efficient resource allocation in Kosovo’s education sector.
“The Government is placing high priority on strengthening the education system and the World Bank is pleased to continue to support these efforts,” said Jan-Peter Olters, World Bank Country Manager for Kosovo. “Investments in education are a key for reducing inter-generational poverty and for promoting prosperity at the individual and country level.”
The project will support the Government’s education sector reform strategy and agenda. More specifically, the project aims at strengthening planning, financial management, and evaluation capacities at different levels of the education sector, including the national, the municipal and the school and university level, as well as to enhance and modernize the systems and practices of data management and analysis in the education sector. It also aims at supporting and institutionalizing the teacher career system, facilitating the use of international best practices in student assessment and evaluation, and enhancing the capacities and responsiveness of tertiary education institutions to the labor market.
As the project focuses at the system level, the project benefits everyone, across all levels, in the education system. In particular, a subcomponent of School Development Grants will support schools in poorer rural areas, covering approximately 45,000 students (around 20 percent of all primary schools). Indirect beneficiaries for this subcomponent will also include school teachers, administrators, and other staff employed in those schools. Another subcomponent envisions support for the implementation of the teacher licensing and performance assessment, which would directly affect about 25,000 teachers in pre-university education.
The project is to be implemented over a period of four years, between 2015 and 2019, by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology of the Republic of Kosovo. It would be fully financed by a credit from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group.
