The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is donating an additional $50 million grant to expand access to free, quality education for all Haitian children, in keeping with education reform Haiti launched in 2010.
According to a press release, the IDB has offered to support the five-year plan with $250 million from its own resources and to raise $250 million more from other donors. The reform calls for the construction of thousands of schools, training tens of thousands of teachers and free education for millions of children, it noted.
The IDB approved an initial $50 million grant in November and it has worked to enlist other international agencies, bilateral donors, philanthropic institutions and companies interested in supporting education in Haiti after last year’s devastating earthquake. To date, the financial assistance provided by the IDB and its partners now involves about $150 million.
Haiti’s Ministry of Education (MENFP) and its Economic and Social Assistance Fund are the executing agencies of the new grant, which will contribute to expanding children’s access to schools, improve the quality of education, expand vocational training opportunities for youth and strengthen the ministry’s execution and regulation capacities.
IDB resources will be used to construct and furnish 20 public schools in areas where there are no educational services. They will also support the rehabilitation of 15 schools damaged by the earthquake and the equipping of eight schools built by the United States Southern Command.
To expand access to education, the grant will support a school tuition waiver programme backed by the Haitian government, the World Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency and the Caribbean Development Bank, among other donors. The IDB’s contribution will enable 35,000 children to attend classes without paying tuition and will cover the cost of school kits and text books for 30,000 students and 2,000 teachers.
Further, the IDB says to improve learning it will assist the MENFP to restart a distance education programme that had shown encouraging results in terms of improved Mathematics and language learning. The grant will also support a competitive fund for pedagogic innovation, which will finance projects proposed by public or private institutions to boost education using digital technologies.
In addition, the programme will finance a pilot project on sports for development carried out by Haiti’s Olympic Committee. The project will involve 7,500 children in a sporting complex in Carrefour, in Port-au-Prince’s southern outskirts. To expand the technical training opportunities for Haitian youth, the plan will strengthen the National Institute for Vocational Training. The IDB will help fund the building or rehabilitation of new public-private management models in six other centres, particularly in the northern region, where it is financing the construction of an industrial park.
The grant will also sponsor activities to strengthen the MENFP in order to increase its capacity to execute projects and to regulate the Haitian education system. “Education is one of the IDB’s priority sectors in Haiti, where it is carrying out projects totalling over $1billion in sectors such as transportation infrastructure, water and sanitation, agriculture, energy and private sector development,” the release said.
