Document o f Th e World Bank FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Report No : 33215-AR PR OJE CT APPRA ISAL DOCUMENT O N A PR OPO SE D L OA N I N THE AMOUNT O F US$l50.00 MILLION TO THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC FOR RURAL EDUC ATION IMPROVEMENT PROJECT-PROMER November 17,2005 Human Development Sector Management Unit Argentina, Chile, Para guay an d Urug uay Country Managem ent Uni t Latin America a nd th e Cari bbean Regional Offi ce This document ha s a restricted distribution and may be used by recipients only in the performance o f their official duties. I t s contents may no t otherwise be disclosed without World Bank authorization. P u b l i c D i s c l o s u r e A u t h o r i z e d P u b l i c D i s c l o s u r e A u t h o r i z e d P u b l i c D i s c l o s u r e A u t h o r i z e d P u b l i c D i s c l o s u r e A u t h o r i z e d
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PROJECT APPRAISAL DOCUMENT ON A PROPOSED LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF US$l50.00 MILLION TO THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC FOR RURAL EDUCATION_IMPROVEMENT_PROJECT-PROMER-33215-INGLÉS
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8/8/2019 PROJECT APPRAISAL DOCUMENT ON A PROPOSED LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF US$l50.00 MILLION TO THE ARGENTINE…
Does the project depart from the C AS in content or other significant respects? Re$
PAD A.3
Does the project require any exceptions fr om Ban k policies?
No
[ ]Yes [XINO
Covenants applicable to project implementation: Signed bilateral agreements between Federal and
Prov incia l Governments
Ref: PA D D.7Ha ve these been approved by Ba nk management?
[ ]Yes [ IN0
[ ]Yes [ IN0
I s approval for any p ol ic y exception sought from the Board?Does the project include any cr i t ical r isks rat ed “substantial” or “high”?
Re$ PAD C.5
Does the project me et the Regional criteria for readiness for implementation? Re f.
PAD D.7
Project development objective Re$ PAD B.2, Technical Annex 3
[X IY e s [ ] N o
[XIYes [ ] N o
The project seeks to support nationa l Government polic y to imp rove the coverage, efficiency , quality, and
governance o f he Argentine education system.
Project description Ref: PA D B.3.a, Technical Annex 4
The project seeks t o contr ibute t o i mprov ing the gro wth potentia l o f Argentina and reducing socia’inequality. Argentina’s rura l sector, w hi ch wo ul d be supported by this proposed project, has a tremendou!
potentia l to contr ibute to gr owth and economic development in Argentina.
The proposed project would provide education inputs to rur al schools under a scheme o f bilatera
agreements between the Na tiona l an d Provin cial Governments that w ou ld seek t o attain results regardin8
the coverage and qualit y o f basic rura l education. The inputs would include teacher training, didactic
material and equipment including textbooks, workbooks and guides, and school rehabil i tation to briq
schools up to basic minimum standards. Special attention would be paid to ensure that these inputs arc
appropriate for the loc al context o f ur al areas. The project has two components:
Component A: Impro ving Qual i ty and Coverage o f Rural Education (US$244.60 mi l l i on )This component i s designed and implem ented around three subcomponents: (i)mproving Operatin]
Condit ions o f Rural Schools; (ii)xpanding Coverage and Impro vin g Student Promotio n Flow ; and (iii
Strengthening Lin e Departments at the Provinc ial Levels;
Component B: Enhancing Stewardship Capaci ty o f he National Government (US$5 -40mi l l ion)
This component consists o f he fol l ow ing tw o sub-components: (i) trengthening Li ne Departments at thiNation al Level; and (ii) oni to r ing and Eva luat ion.
W h ic h safeguard policies are tr iggered, i f any? Re$ PAD D.6, TechnicalAnnex 10
(i)nvironmental (OP/BP 4.01) and (ii)ndig eno us Peoples OP 4.10.
Significant, non-standard conditions, if any, for : N o t appl icable.
Ref: PAD C.7
Bo ar d presentation:
Lo ad cr ed it effectiveness: Signed bilate ral agreements between the Federal Governm ent and at least tw ~
Provinces.
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Argentina i s n o w recover ing fro m a severe economic and social crisis. Aft er three years o f fast growth
(averaging some 8.5 percent during 2003-2005), GDP has recovered to the pre-crisis peak o f 1998. Thefocus in Argentina must no w m ove aw ay f ro m crisis response to long -term structural issues regarding the
econom y and society-issues o f growth, equity, resilience and avoidance o f urther crises. Three features
o f Argentina’s growth path, as recognized in the Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for
Argentina (Report 2734 0-AR, January 29, 2004) have a crucial bearing on the policies f or the education
sector and the rol e o f he Bank in support o f hose policies:
First, Argentina seeks a permanent improvem ent in the investment cl ima te to support sustained long -term
growth. There i s a strong growth in the productive sector o f he economy, no t just in services but also in
agriculture and manufacturing. Argentina seeks to build o n i t s existing comparative advantages inagriculture and cert ain manuf act uring and service sectors to serve as engines o f growth. A successful
transi t ion from economic recovery to sustained gro wth wou ld further fuel a strong demand for ski l led
labo r and the educ atio n sector needs to be able to m eet this demand.
Second, the issue o f long-term social inclusion o vulnerable groups i s a very important i tem o n the
agenda o f social poli cy. The Government seeks to provide equal i ty o f opportunity, through employment
generation for exclude d populations, like segments o f urban yo uth w ho never had a chance to completeschooling, and by imp rov ing educational attainment o f the population in rural areas, particularly in the
poorer provinces o f he Northwest and Northeast. Annex 1 documents the nature o f disparities regarding
the quantity and quality of education.
m,he sustained long-term growt h path wou ld on ly be v iable under a ser ies o f simultaneous p ol ic y
actions such as measures to promote infrastructure, investment, improve the business environment and
simplify procedures to start businesses, strengthen property laws, and maintain macroeconomic stability.
Impro ved human resources are o nly part o f a complex interplay o f orces that lead to or impede economic
development. I t s vi ta l to remember that improvements in the education sector in turn influence a nd areinfluenced by the larger conte xt o f development as the particular c ontext o f the education sector i s
examine d more closely.
Uncompleted educational policy reforms
Argentina’s education sector i s characterized by uncom pleted reforms, with decentralization as the central
element in the refo rm agenda. The history o f decentral ization (of pr ima ry schools in 1978 and secondary
schools in 1992) i s checkered in Argentina. Provincial Governments had widely varying levels of
ownership and capacity to administer the educational ref or m pro gram in the 1990s. In addit ion to the
handover o f al l schools to provinces that removed the Federal level com pletely fro m school
administration, there was simultaneously a majo r curricular reform . Th e system that had been in existence
for man y decades consisted o f prim ary school in 7 grades, and secondary school in 5 grades (6 fo rtechnical schools). The ne w system wo ul d consist o f a com pulso ry year o f pre-school, an extended
compu lsory prima ry or basic school o f 9 grades, an d a secondary school or Pol imodal with f lexible,
modular o f fer ing o f 3 years (4 for technical schools).
A significant changeo ver o f this kind required some rather di f f ic ul t logist ical problems o f organization,
and implied the need for significant additional resources to retrain teachers and rearrange the
infrastructure, equipment and didacti c materials. The two systems ha d to co-exist for some time, as
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childr en were m ov ed fr om one educational mo del to another, wh ic h generated additiona l complications.
T he resources available fo r such a dramatic change although not entirely absent, we re no t available in a l l
jurisdictions to the required level, and certainly not with any consistency or regularity for a complete
transition to the ne w system. Meanwh ile, problems o f he quality and relevance o f he education system,
that had led to the reforms in the f i r s t place, remained large ly in place, wh ic h le d to considerable erosion
in he support fo r the reform.
The late 1990s and the early part o f this decade witnessed the worst economic c risis ever experienced in
Argentina, and the education sector suffered the brunt o f the cuts in the avai labil i ty o f resources, even
thou gh some jurisd iction s were able to cope with less resources and less damaging disasters. In spite o f
the problems, there has been a real increase in educational attainment in the 1990s. The out-of-school
populat ion in the 10-14 years age-group fell f ro m 6.8 to 2.9 percent, and the out-of-school popu lation o f
15-19 years fe ll f ro m 45.8 t o 30.6 percent (Source: Population Census o f 1991 and 2001). Currently inArgentina, approxim ately ten years after the reform s were initiated, there are s t i l l great disparities across
and within provinces in terms o f educational opportunities offered to people, depending on where they
l i v e a nd their socio-economic background. The current status o f he Argentine education system i s often
refe rred to as “fragmented.”
In this fragmented context, the Federal Government recognizes a strategic opportunity to supportprovince s through p ol ic y guidance and resource transfers under the aegis o f a revamped national
educational program . The regulatory framework in Argentina provides a role for a national program as
the responsibil i ty fo r the education system i s shared between the Federal and Pr ovinc ial levels. Provinces
are responsible fo r running he education system o f heir jur isdict ion; the Federal Governm ent i s entrusted
with supporting the provinces under a national educational poli cy based on principles o f natio nal unity,
cul tural identi ty and equali ty o f opportunit ies. The ro le o f he Federal Government i s best understood in
the context o f some basic figures about publi c educational expenditures.
Public educational expenditures: Role of the Federal Government in the Provinces
O f average publi c education expenditures o f US$6,700 m il l i on (in constant 2005 dollars) in Argentina in
the pe riod 1995-2005, the Federal Government’s share was about 24 percent or an average o fapproximate ly US$1,600 mi l l ion , o f wh ich US$1,500 mi l l i on i s the budget o f he Nat iona l Ministry o f
Education (MECyT). O f he MECyT expenditures, about 70 percent or about US $95 0 m il l i o n s allocatedto universi t ies. Th e rem aining US$550 m i l l i on is spent as national grant transfers t o P rovincial
Governments. O f the approximate US$4,900 m i l l i on o f provincia l education expenditures, about 95
percent pays salaries o f teachers and adm inistrative staff. Alt hou gh trends regarding the func tional
classifica tion o f non-univ ersity national educational expenditures over tim e i s diff icul t to make (due to
fluctuations in allocations), in recent years (1999-2005) MECyT transferred substantial amounts to
prov ince s to supplement teacher salaries, fo r an average o f about U S 3 5 0 mi l l i on per year. These Federal
salary supplements were absent before 1999, and were largely begun to address the provincial
Governments’ ina bil i t y to pay teacher salaries regularly, w hi ch l ed to massive teacher strikes and incertain provinces, the virtu al cessation o f educational service delivery. Federal grant transfers for
infrastructure, school materials inc lu din g textbooks, in-service teacher training, a nd qua lity enhancementprogram s and scholarships form nearly the entire corpus o f non-salary pre-univ ersity pub lic expenditures
in provinces.
Argentina’s population and economic activity are highly concentrated regional ly; o f the c ountry’s 24
jur isd ic tions, the C i ty o f Buenos Aires and three Pampa prov ince s (Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and C6rdoba)
account for three-fourths o f the GDP and two-thirds o f the populat ion. The remaining 20 provinces
account for only 25 percent o f he GDP and one-third o f he population. Even though provinces have their
ow n revenues fr om taxes, the region al disparities necessitate a large dependence o n a shared poo l o f
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nat ion al taxes under a ‘co-participation’ regime that has compensatory elements to make revenues
avai lable to poorer provinces. An nex 1 provides a mo re detai led account o f educational financing issues.
The fo l lo win g f ive salient points are made in this analysis:
E v e n with compensatory elements in co-participation, owing to the basic differences in
economic geography, differences in revenue avai labi l ity to each province are a dr iver o fhuge disparities across provinces in terms o f annual expenditures per student (w hic h range
f ro m rough l y US$200 in Salta to US$800 in Santa Cruz);
Differences in provincia l f iscal effor t for educat ion account for o nly a sma l l por t io n o f
differences in per student expenditures across provinces (education expenditures average
about 27 percent o f otal prov incial expenditures and most provinces are near that number);
Dir ec t federal educat ional programs in provinces have made onl y a dent in the inequali ty o f
resource allocation, in part because even though the federal programs are practical ly the
on ly programs d irected at i tems other than salaries, the rel ative magnitude o f these
programs s small;
The magni tude o f federa l programs i s changing drastical ly as a result o f a concerted po licydecis ion by the Government. F o r example, expenditures o n a qua lity an d compensation
progra ms increased by near ly 17 percent in 2005 as compared to 2004, and an increase o f
s imi lar or greater margin i s anticipated for the 2006 budget. I t should be noted that the
recent increase comes after a period o f decline between 1999 and 2004 in such programs
that cumulat ively amounts to a decline o f nearly 40 percent; and
The margin for improvement within the envelope o f the exist ing pattern o f resource
distr ibut ion across provinces would not be sufficient to address the disparit ies in
educational opp ortun ity. There i s a need fo r transparent and non-discretionary transfers
fr om the Federal Gove rnme nt to address the fundamental or structural inequalit ies.
Policy response: Improving distribution o f federal educational grant transfers to provinces
These structural problem s characterized by inter-provincial spending di f ferences are not unco mmon in a
country with very high disparities in economic development, and i t s di f f i cu l t to achieve a high degree o f
hor izonta l equi ty through the s ing le ins t rument o f i sca l po l i cy . There is a limit t o w h i c h high revenue-
generating provinces can be taxed t o transfer t o poorer provinces before negative incent ive effects set in,no t to m ention the adverse incent ives f or the re ceiv ing provinces. Rather than wa i t f or a comprehensive
reform in Argentina’s fiscal framework, the Government’s education sector policy seeks to work within
the l imi tat ions o f he exist ing arrangement. The Federal Governme nt woul d cont inue to pro vide resources
for qual i ty and compensatory programs that prov inces wou ld n ot be able t o implement o n thei r own.
Po l ic y reforms underway ai m to im prov e the impact o f scarce federal resources by apply ing wel l -def ined
and measurable educational goals as a starting poi nt f or the iden tif ica tion o f needs and the subsequent
al loca tion o f federal grant transfers across provinces, with the d istr ibut ion o f resources based on
transparent, non-discretionary criteria.
An impo rtant attempt to establish a strategic d irect ion fo r the education sector i s being pursued through
the proposed La w for E ducat ional Financing, n o w under considerat ion by the National Congress. This
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proposed la w prov ide s a clear visio n of ten educational “bi-centenary goals”’ to be accomplished by th e
year 2010, when Arge ntina completes 200 years o f t s f i r s t independent Government. The proposed law
wo uld also prov ide a mechanism for the ut i l izat io n o f iscal resources under the shared responsibi l i ty of
the Federal and Provin cial Governments. Provinces wou ld be able t o choose whether to enter in to the n e w
f inanc ing f ramework, in wh ich case they would s i gn a b ilateral agreement with the Federal Government
com mitt in g to achieve speci f ic goals and to ma tch additional federal resources with add itional resourcesfr om th eir general revenues. Specific reme dial measures wo ul d be made e xpli cit in the proposed law to
deal with possible non-compliance. T w o mode rniz ing pr inciples wou ld und erpin the proposed la w the
establishment o f clear systemic goals, and the provis ion o f esources under an established set o f rules for
resource al locations that pro vide incentives to provinces t o meet those goals.
Ba nk f inanc ing i s proposed for one element o f the nat ional educat ional program, na mely the Natio nal
Program for Rura l Educat ion (NPRE). The NPRE wo uld advance regardless o f whether or n ot the ne w
l a w i s approved or whether or n ot the Ba nk approves f inancing f or the NPRE. In this context, the central
idea i s for the Ban k to par tner with the Government through f inanc ing and pol icy innovat ion that w ould
potent ial ly be leveraged to other elements o f the nat iona l program. These innovat ions relate to the
ident i f icat io n o f systemic goals and the al locat ion o f resources to fol low provincia l needs, using a model
o f bi lateral agreements. The remainder o f this sect ion prov ides a b r ie f overv iew o f rura l education in
Argentina.
Coverage, Quality and Effic iency o f Ru ra l Education
The education system in Argentina i s heavi ly biased in favor o f the overwhelmingly large urban
population. Rural education in Argentina sti l l faces pockets with l im i te d coverage, m ain ly in the poorer
Northeast (NEA) and Nor thwest (NOA) regions o f he country, where access to the ten obl igatory years
of education i s not complete, par t icular ly for pre-school and for the third cyc le o f Bas ic Educat ion
(EGB3). In ru ra l areas where there i s prov is i on o f pre-school and EG B3 education, there are fe w signs o f
constraints on the demand side. How ever, coverage f or the extended span o f compulso ry education (to
pre-school and EG B3) has lagged for r ural areas. Fo r Pr imary Edu cat ion (EGB1 and EGB2), coverage i s
near ly universal even in rur al areas; however, the qua lity o f this education i s uneven, w hic h results in
high rates o f epet i t ion and dropout, and constrains the possibi l i ty o f access to highe r levels o f educationa2Wh i le there are nat io nal programs that address the issue o f qual i ty in urb an schools, this has not been the
case for rur al schools to date. As a resul t, the G overnment aims t o im pleme nt a targeted program that
wo uld address the pe cul iar i t ies o f schools in rural areas, includ ing the need to prov ide educat ion services
to local i t ies with l o w populat ion dens ity, to prov ide c loser involvement o f ch i ldren with the ambience o f
farming and related act ivi t ies, and to recognize the heightened ro le o f a school as a cul tural node f or the
local communi ty . The Government’s Nat ional Rura l Education Program wo uld thus direct ly support the
f i r s t tw o bi-centenary goals at the focus o f the refo rm agenda-universal ization o f pre-school and
complete coverage o f te n years o f compulsory educat ion. The Ru ral Educat ion Progra m wo uld also help
address another imp ortan t bi-centenary go al rega rding the qu ality o f basic education, esp ecial ly related to
1 See Annex 1 for an enumeration of the t e n goals. Essentially, these ambitious goals are concerned with an
improvement in the quality and contribution o f he education sector to the Argen tine society, in a manner that carriesal l Argentines w i th it, especially by includin g hitherto excluded groups.2 At the end o f A nnex 1, a series of schematic maps provides a graphic demon stration o f the distribution o f
education gaps in Argentina’s ru ra l areas. I t s estimated that roughly 140,000 children in rur al areas do n ot haveaccess to pre-school and EGB3, with 70 percent o f those out o f school belonging to NOA an d NEA. There areapproximately 714,000 c hildren in rur al areas in EGBl and EGB2, with 38 percent o f hose chi ldren being overage,
compared to 23 percent for urb an areas. The rural EGB1 and EGB 2 enrol lment f ro m the NOA an d NEA provincesaccounts for nearly 60 percent of the total rural enrollment for th e country, even though NOA an d NEA represent
only about 20 percent o f Argentina’s population.
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8/8/2019 PROJECT APPRAISAL DOCUMENT ON A PROPOSED LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF US$l50.00 MILLION TO THE ARGENTINE…
the core basic sk i l l s that form pa r t o f the nat ional ly rat if ied Core Lea rn ing Pr ior i t ies (Nccleos de
Aprendizujes Prioritarios, NAP).Achievement o f the nat ional goals for rura l areas wo ul d contr ibute to
the task o f mak ing the educat ion system in Argentina m ore product ive and equi table.
Simi lar t o coverage, the qual i ty o f education in rur al areas i s also s ign i fi cant ly be low that o f urb an areas.
Owing to lo w populat ion densi ty, schools in rur al areas have multi-grad e classrooms, quite d ifferen t fro mthe m ul ti pl e sections per grade that characterize most urb an schools. R ura l teachers do n ot hav e access to
the in for ma tio n sources, peer support and opportunities f or professional development that are ofte n taken
fo r granted by ur ba n teachers. In addi t ion to the problem deal ing with the organizational and pedagogical
mod el that has been used for ru ral schools, another serious p roble m has been the la ck o f access to basic
educational inputs - rural schools have unfor tunately tended to be at the end o f the pr ior i ty l i s t in the
alloca tion o f esources for infrastructure, equipment, didactic materials and trained teachers. A signi f icant
propor t ion o f ura l schools do not have e lec t r ic i ty or drinkingwater as they are off-g r id. I t s only recent ly
that rur al schools have begun to b e equipped with cost-effe ctive a lternative en ergy sources, suc h as solar
panels that are now commercial ly avai lable, or with mo de m ecological ly appropriate methods o f
col lect ing rai n water, or with other l o w cost water sources. Shortcomings in the prov i s ion o f c r i t ica l
inputs such as the phy sica l plant an d didactic materials are part o f a genera l p ic ture o f ack o f adequate
atten tion to ru ra l schools. The characteristics o f rur al schools also includ e pos itive features, such as
greater cohesion with the com munity and the potent ial fo r d eveloping educat ional act iv i t ies that are betterintegrated with t he da i l y l i f e o f chi ldren in ru ra l areas, but this potent ial i s not a lways fully exploited.
The use o f inappropriate pedagogical and organizat ion models, p oor physica l plant, the la ck o f
educat ional equipment and didact ic mater ials, and the neglect o f programs to p rovid e training and
pedagog ical support to rural teachers exp lain the lo w qual i ty o f educat ional attainment o f the rura l
populat ion. Repeti t ion, over-age and drop-out rates are muc h higher f or ru ral chi ldren than fo r their urban
counterparts. Rur al chi ld ren learn less when they are in school, and drop out mo re often after continuous
repet it ions. Imp rovin g the coverage and qual i ty o f rural educat ion has the potent ial to contr ibute to an
improvement o f he ef f ic iency in the overal l use o f pu blic ed ucational resources in Argentina. The use o f
multi-grade classrooms, when combined with the pro vis ion o f adequate mater ials and training also
provide s an incremental mechanism to imp rove the ove ral l ef f ic iency in the deployment o f teacher
resources thro ugh the educational system.
2. Rationale fo r Ba nk involvement
Support ing the important Nation al Program for Ru ra l Educat ion provides an excel lent oppo rtuni ty fo r the
Ba nk to continue to wo rk in partnership with the Government, in an area that addresses social inclu sion o f
vu lnerable groups, equal ity o f oppor tuni ty and the improvement o f pro duc t iv i ty -cen t ra l themes in th e
CAS. Ban k support under the proposed operat ion woul d increase the f inanc ia l envelope o f the R ura lEducat ion Program, al lo wing i t to accelerate implementation and increase i t s geographical scope. Bank
support would also provide state-of-the-art technical inputs that: (i) trengthen the Government’s
financial, technical and operational capabil it ies; (ii)ontr ibute to the analy t ica l bas is o f po l i c y dec is ion-
making; (iii) ring cross-country experience, bo th fi-om developed and de velop ing countries; a nd (iv)
fac i li ta te w ork within a federal f ramewo rk by building o n previous experience gained o ver several years
o f support to Argent ina’s educat ion sector at bo th federal and provin cial levels. Exp er ience expected to b e
gained by the nat ional and prov incia l Governments th rough project implementat ion wo uld h elp strengthen
the or ientat ion towards resul ts and development impact, n ot just for the proposed Bank-f inance d Project,
but fo r the Government’s education prog ram as a whole.
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3. Higher level objectives to which the project contributes
The Project supports k ey elements o f the N ational Educat ional Program that contr ibutes to the task o f
reducin g social inequal i ty and imp rovin g Argentina’s growth potential . In Argentina, there i s a close
correlation between socio-economic levels and schooling success, suggesting that education has often
served in the past to exacerbate rather than al leviate social and economic inequalit ies. Chi ldren whocome fr om relat ive ly weal thier fami l ies do better in school, even i f hey attend pu blic schools, an d are
less l ik el y to repeat and to drop o ut o f school, an d they show better test scores. Th ey ten d to proceed to
mo re successful careers in the labor market and earn better incomes. Conversely, chi ldren fro m poor
fami l ies tend to per fo rm worse in school a nd consequently afterwards. In general, the education system i s
no t able to compensate for the economic deficits that constrain po or childre n in their ho me environment.
The proposed Project focused on ru ral areas wou ld be a par t o f various other effor ts in a nat ional
endeavor to reverse this process o f poor educat ion perpetuat ing p overty. The proposed Project’s
cont r ibut ion to a reduct ion in the inequal i ty o f outcomes in rura l educat ion wo uld help to lead to a
reduct ion in the overa l l inequal i ty o f he educat ion system.
B. PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The lending ins t rument i s a speci f ic investment loan, which provides both f inancial and technical
assistance throughout implem entat ion o f he proposed Project.
1. Project development objective and key indicators
The Project ’s Development Object ive i s to suppor t nat ional Government pol icy to : (i)mprove the
coverage, efficiency, and qua lity o f he Argentine education system, and (ii)o im prove the governance o f
the Argen t ine educat ion system through strengthening o f the normative, planning, informa tion,
monitoring, and evaluation capacity at the national and provincial levels. These general objectives
translate into the fo l lo win g speci fic P roject Development Objectives (PDO) to be reached in a p e r io d o f
fiv e years:
A. Coverage(Al) Reduce by ha l f he d i f ference in he access o f 6 year old chi ldren in ls trade as compared to
5 year old chi ldren in Pre-School in rur al areas in Argentina;
(A2) Increase fr om 73 percent to 85 percent the access o f students co mpl etin g the 7th grade to the
8’ grade o f school ing in rur al areas in Argentina;
B. Efficiency(B1) Improve prom ot ion rate in EGB1 (Grades 1 to 3) in rur al areas in Argen ti na f r o m 76 percent
(2002) to 85 percen t (2010);
(B2) Reduce two or more years o f overage enrol lment in E G B 2 in rura l areas f ro m 24 percent
(2002) t o 12 percen t (2010);
C . Quality(C l) Improve the percentage o f students in Grade 3 in ru ral schools a chieving prof ic iencies in
the nat ional ly rat i f ied standards o f he Core Lea rning Pr ior i t ies (NAP);(C l) Improve the percentage o f students in Grade 6 in ru ral schools achieving prof ic iencies in
the nat ional ly rat i f ie d standards o f he Core Lea rning Pr ior i t ies (NAP);
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(Dl) Number of bi lateral agreements between nat ional and provincial Governments in
satisfactory execution; an d
(D2) Annual p lans regard ing the compilation, analysis, dissemination and use o f educational
statistics in satisfactory execution.
2. Project components
Component A:U W 4 4 . 7 9 million Bank financing)
Improving Quality and Coverage o f Rural Education (US$234.85 million;
This component would support improvements in rural educat ional services throug h the N ationa l Program
for Rura l Educa t i on (NPRE) approved by the Federal Educat ion Cou nci l (CFE) in 2004. The component
wo uld f inance the development and appl icat ion o f pedagogical and organizational models that are
appropriately tai lored fo r the par t icular social , cul tural and economic con text o f rural households.
Act iv i t ies in the prov inces wou ld be par t o f the educat ion po l icy formulated around specif ied coverage
and qua l i ty targets regarding rural educat ion for each province. The n at ional program w ou ld be executed
through signed co nv en io s- or bi lateral agreements-between the nat ion al and prov incia l Governments.
The NPRE assigns resources to al l provinces, with pr ior i ty to those where the coverage and quality gaps
are the greatest. Th e distr ibut ion o f esources among the provinces wou ld b e based on the percentage o f
rural pop ulat ion and the percentage o f households with unm et basic needs in the province. The detai ls o f
inter-provincial al locat ion o f esources are speci f ied fur ther in he Operat ions Man ual . The m ain purpose
of this approach is to use a more equitable instrument to link the federal resources to the needs o f
provinces, and cont r ibute to redress the high l eve l o f d ispari ty in educational spending across Argen tine
regions.
The implementat ion arrangement for the Project w ou ld center on convenios betwe en the nat ional and
prov incial Governments. These convenios f orm the basis o f an accountabi l i ty framew ork for the project.
The accountabi l i ty regarding the rural educat ion component wo uld be centered on f ive-year goals and the
annual targets f or ru ral educat ion that would fo rm part o f he convenios descr ibed in Annex 6. This annexalso descr ibes ho w the f low o f esources wo uld be l inked to accomplishment o f he goals laid out in th e
convenios.
This component consists o f a two-pronged implemen tat ion strategy, that wo uld also be ref lected in th e
definition o f the disbursement categories for B an k financing as fol low s: (i)he f i rst par t o f he strategy
refers to the implementat ion o f ac t iv it ies that wou ld b e coord inated and purchased by the national level,
whic h includ e the provis ion o f didact ic mater ials and teaching equipment and other inputs; and (ii)he
second par t o f this strategy wo uld consist o f act iv i t ies that wo uld be executed di rect ly by the provinces
and schools with resources transferred by the nat ional level to the provinces, referred to as Provincial
Sub-projects. B o th o f these elements o f the implementat ion strategy would be included in the bi lateral
agreement or convenio, and wo ul d fo rm part o f he province’s pl an for r ura l educat ion. There are three
sub-components:
Sub-component A l : Improving Operating Conditions o f Rural Schools (US$117.79 million;
US$106.01 Bank financing)
This sub-component covers fou r a ct iv i t ies that are com mon to a l l levels o f compulsory educat ion in th e
coun try: Pre-school, EGB1, E G B 2 and EGB3, and special support fo r indigenous education:
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Pro vis ion o f basic didactic ma terials and teaching equipment: Dida ctic materials financed
by this sub-component wo ul d include: (a) textbooks, workbooks, student and teacher
guides; (b) l ibrary books, reference books, school supplies, audio-visual materials; (c)science and technology equipment (computers and televisions) and software; a nd (d) sports
and did actic games.
Minimum school infrastructure standards: This act iv i ty intends to provide minimum school
infrastructure standards for al l schools in the rural areas. This act iv i ty would pr ior i t i ze
schools located in egions where the problem o f di lapidated nfrastructure and lack o f water
and electr ic i ty supply are most crucial. T o achieve i t s object ives the act iv i ty wo uld f inance:
(a) cons tructio n o f additio nal classrooms to absorb a ddition al enrollment; (b) replacement
of di lapid ated schools and rehab il i tation o f school facil i t ies; (c) furniture; and (d) school
mainte nance costs.
Establishment o f Clusters o f Rural Schools (amupamientos) : T o faci l i tate loca l
organization and management, this act iv i ty w ou ld support the establishment o f school
clusters. These clusters w ou ld operate as a suppo rt system for teachers in solate d areas and
wo ul d increase the exchange o f experiences in the r ur al areas. A c lus ter o f rura l schools
wo ul d group, more or less, ten schools. The cluster wo uld pro vide space for deal ing with a
com mon set o f problems whi le at the same t ime generating economies o f scale in core
func tions such as educational planning, train ing and management o f didactic materials,
teach ing equipments, and fin ancia l resources. This activity would finance: (a) technical
assistance; and (b) operational resources for the formatio n and fu nct ionin g o f c lusters as
detai led in Annex 4.
Distance educat ion through the Educat ion TV Channel: This act iv i ty would support the
supply o f technological tools to perm it schools and students t o receive the TV programs
del ivered by the TV National Educat ion Channel . The component would f inance: (a)
technical tools to connect the TVs in each school with the satellite; and (b) operational
costs relate d to this act iv i ty.
Indigenous educat ion: Th is act iv i ty wo ul d support the development o f actions to increase
awareness o f he cul tural diversi ty exist ing in the rura l communit ies as we l l as knowled ge
o f the t rad i t ional language and cul ture o f the ind igenous populat ion. This act iv i ty would
finance: (a) technical assistance and consultant services fo r the pre parat ion o f school
development plans; (b) t r a in i ng o f he members o f he commun it y who wou ld support the
implementat ion o f l i teracy programs and development o f inst i tut iona l projects, and (c)
training programs fo r schools developing indigenous educat ion programs.
Sub-component A2: Expanding Coverage and Improving Student Promotion Flow (US$106.46million; US$29.17 Bank financing)
This sub-component wo uld support four act ivi ties, each o f whi ch corresponds to a par t icular educat ion
leve l within the general category o f compulsory educa t ion in Arg ent ina (Pre-school, EGBl, E G B 2 a nd
EGB3) :
(i) Expanding coverage for Pre-school education: This act iv i ty wo uld support the extension o f
pre-school programs in the rural areas throug h the development and appl icat ion o f multi-
grade pre-school models. T o expand the provi s ion o f pre-school in the ru ral schools, this
act iv i ty wou ld support the fol low ing: (a) prov is ion o f eacher guides on act iv i t ies for pre-
school chi ldren; (b) train ing activ it ies f or teachers; and (c) technical assistance.
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Redu cing repet i t ion in EGB 1 This act iv i ty wo uld promote organizat ional and pedagogical
act ions to prevent dropout and repet i t ion in the first years o f school ing, through three l ines
o f act ions: (a) development o f act ions to increase the reading abi l i ty o f students in th e
in it ia l grades, in clu din g preparatory activit ies at the pre-school leve l; (b) adopti on o f a
three-year learning cycle as the framework for learning and students’ promotion; (c)improvements in the curr iculu m materials for teaching mat h and other c urricula contents;
an d (d) training activit ies. This act iv i ty would f inance teacher training programs and
techn ical assistance to ensure appropriate use o f he selected educational teaching-learning
materials financed under sub-component A1
Accelerat ion program fo r increasing students’ attainment in EGB2: In most rura l areas inArgentina, an estimated 30 percent o f students 11 or 12years o f age are over-age in relat ion
to t he grade, due to repetit ion, dropout an d sporadic re-enrollment in school. T o reduce the
overage problem, this act iv i ty aims to help the over-age students in rural areas catch up
academically and thereby reduce the serious age grade distortion in EGB2. The
implementat ion o f an accelerated learning program, using special ly developed materials,
teacher or ientat ion and student sel f-guided wo rk w ou ld reduce the impa ct o f previous
repetit ions and would stimulate the capacity in over-aged chi ldren for cont inuing theirstudies rather than dropping o ut prematu rely fro m school. This act iv i ty wo ul d f inance: (a)
teacher training; (b) teaching-learning materials; (c) school supervision visits; and (d)
technical assistance.
Lower secondarv education (EGB3): Schools that belonged to the p revious 7-year pr imar y
school system would be extended to the 9-year EGB system. T o ex tend the years o f
school ing o f students, and cont inue the use o f mul t i -grade classes in EGB3, this act iv i ty
wo ul d support: (a) the design o f earning modules for students, wh ich wo ul d al low students
to wo rk a t the ir own pace with regula r guidance; (b) textbooks, workbooks/manuals with
activit ies adapted to the rura l context; (c) audio-visual materials spec ifica l ly developed for
the rura l context; (d) school development plans; (e) train ing fo r teachers to act as tutors for
the sel f-guided act iv i t ies o f EGB3 students; and (0 train ing o f secondary school teacherswho wo uld be i t inerant teachers o r placed at nodes o f ura l school clusters, or w ou ld ut i l ize
distance learning methods (depending o n the specific ru ra l context).
Sub-component A3: Strengthening Line Departments at the Provincial Levels (US$10.60 million;
US$9.61 million Bank financing)
This subcomponent wo uld support the establishment and consol idat ion o f he management capaci ty o f he
provinces in the implementat ion o f he Pro jec t and susta inabil ity o f he educat ion pol ic ies and ac t iv it ies
after proj ect completion. T h i s subcomponent seeks to raise the qua l i ty o f management o f he schools and
intermediary inst i tut ions so that they can better achieve their academic functions and social
responsibi l i ties o f prov iding equal access and qual i ty educat ion o the chi ldre n in he rur al areas. Thus, thesubcomponent w ould support measures for increasing the prov incial ministr ies’ capaci ty in he fo l l ow ing
dimensions: planning/ information and pedagogical and a dministrat ive areas, in clud ing moni to r ing. Th e
l i n e departments at the provin cial leve l wo uld also be strengthened to support projec t implementat ion and
operation o f he educat ion system at that level . Und er this subcomponent, the project would finance: (a)
technical assistance and consultancy services f or supp orting the pedagogical, a dminis trative and
information areas in each province; (b) trav el expenses; (c) sc hool su pe rvis ion services; (d) i n format ion
system costs; and (e) other operational costs. Adm inist rativ e capacity w ou ld includ e procurement,
financial management, an d au dit ing capac ity.
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Component B: Enhancing Stewardship Capacity o f National Government (US$5.35 million;
US$4.83 million Bank financing)
The Project’s support for the Nationa l Program for Ru ral Educat ion uses an organizat ional mo del that
does not re ly o n paral le l inst i tut ional structures and funct ions that w ou ld depend on a Ban k-f inanced
project. Project implementat ion rel ies on the exist ing Government structures-exist ing units at theME Cy T, at the nat io nal level , and at the Provincial ministr ies o f educat ion. The Project wou ld f inance a
large number o f inputs (as provided in Component A above) u nder the frame work o f the nat ional-
prov inc ia l convenio, wh ich w ou ld establish a broad accountabi li ty fram ework for the Project. In order for
that accou ntab il i ty frame work to f un ction as planned, the Project wo ul d pro vide assistance for
strengthening the re leva nt l in e departments in MECyT.There are two sub-components:
Sub-component B1: Strengthening Line Departments at the National Level (US$2.37 million;
US$2.14 million Bank financing)
An inst i tut ional analysis assessing the capabi l i ty o f he majors actors involve d in project implementat ion
was undertaken, and capacity building measures were identif ied. The requirements at the national level
would strengthen the planning, normative, monitoring, evaluation and implementation support activit ies,
with the bulk o f he support being provided to the departments at the MECyT (i-e., the areas in charge o fthe rur al education program ; evalua tion and statistics; analysis o f pu blic educational expenditures, and
internat ional p roject co-ordination). T o help ensure the adop tion o f ne w processes and procedures and
long-term sustainabi l i ty o f he proposed act ions, through this subcomponent, the p roject w ou ld support:
(i)evi ew of the ins ti tut ion al arrangements o f selected units to ide nt i fy and correct over lapping o f
activit ies and establish mo de m procedures and mechanisms to mo nit or an d evaluate education activit ies
and projects; and (ii)raining programs t o upgrade the technical sk i l l s o f hose i nvo l ved in improvement
of educat ional qual ity, m ain ly in he use o f mplementat ion tools and inform atio n management systems.
This subcomponent would f inance: (i) onsultant services and technical assistance to increase the
inst i tut ional capacity o f ine departments o f the Min i s t r y o f Educa t ion dea li ng with rur al educat ion and
information, as we l l as moni to r ing and evaluation (M&E) activities; (ii)omputer equipment; (iii)
independent auditing at the provincial level; (iv) travel expenses for supervising the provinces andschools, and other ope rational costs.
Sub-component B2: Monitoring and Evaluation (US$2.99 million; US$2.69 Bank financing)
This sub-component wo ul d support the development and imple menta t ion o f a system o f data col lection,
analysis, disseminat ion and use o f nfor matio n for p ol i cy decisions at the National , Pro vincial and School
levels. I t s expected that the info rmat ion system wo ul d also provide inputs for fu ture expansion o f Project
interventions and fo r d er iv ing lessons learned for appl icat ion o f educat ional p ol i cy areas not covered by
the Project, This sub-component would finance technical assistance, and equipment (computers and
software). This sub-component w ou ld develop the fol low ing act iv i ties:
(i) Surveys and Impac t Evaluat ion Studies. F inancing wo ul d be provid ed for a per iodic survey o n
the funct ioning cond i t ions o f rura l schools. Surveys wo ul d includ e those at nat ional andprovincial levels that would evaluate processes and outputs in the course o f Project
implementat ion, and an impact evaluat ion o f a general nature to pro vide insights into the
effectiveness o f publ ic investments in education;
(ii) Student learning. assessments. The proposed Projec t wo ul d fin ance the extension o f a sample of
standardized national student assessments (Operat ivo N acional de Evaluacidn or ONE) t o
ensure representativeness for rural schools by province. This act iv i ty would also include the
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moni to r i n g o f p rogress in the achievement o f the Co re Lea rning Pr ior i ties (NAP) and
diagnost ic in format ion f r om this assessment to b e pro vided t o indiv idua l schools.
3. Lessons le arn ed and reflected in the pro ject design
In he course o f support ing Argent ina’s educat ional po l icy refo rm through the four PRO DYM ES Pro jects(I,1 I11 and IIIA), well as through support for other investment and adjustment (now development
pol icy) lending in Argentina, a number of lessons have been learned by the Bank. These can be classified
in five dimensions:
a) Definition o the borrower; In a previous project support ing investments at the provin cial lev el
( P R O D Y M E S I),rov inces were ident i f ied and prov inc ia l w i ll ingness to bor row was conf i rmed during
project preparat ion. Eve n so, long delays ensued when external macro-economic shocks compounded
with internal problems led some o f the provinces, after loan approval by the Bank, to avoid tak ing o n
additio nal indebtedness. In he case o f P R O D Y M E S 11, the Federal Government stepped in o assume the
Ba nk oa n after a pe r io d o f wo years wi thout disbursements. Fo r the proposed Project, it i s clear that this
i s a nat ional pro jec t with national indebtedness. In keeping with the nat ional Government’s responsibi l i ty
for educat ional qu al i ty and for compensatory programs, the nat iona l Governmen t wou ld be responsible
for the product ion o f instruments for impro ved educat ional service del ivery. Provinces wo uld contract
with the na tio n to use these instruments to ob tain imp rov ed educational services.
b) Consultat ion and Partnership with Provincial Education Ministr ies: An impor tant lesson f rom
previous projects is the need for a process o f consultat ion with the province s that are responsible for the
administrat ion o f the educat ional system in their respective jur isdict ions. The p roject supports nat ional
educat ional pol icy that i s shaped progres sively in per iod ic meetings o f he Consejo Federa l de Educacidn
(CFE). In addition, the project shares elements with the ne w proposed educat ional f inancing l a w that i s
the subject o f extensive consultations with provincial administrations as well as civi l society at large. At
the operational level, there have been a series o f meetings and consultations with prov inces for def in ing
the Project intervent ions. The design o f the project incorporates provinc ial par t ic ipat ion in determining
the timing and locus o f n tervent ions. Convenios between the nat ional and prov inc ia l Government wou ld
further strengthen provincia l ownership o f he project.
c) Systemic and sustainable impact: Projects that do n ot deal with systemic issues tend to have a l o w
development impac t. Fo r educat ion projects, the ine r t ia o f the ent i re educat ion system can overwh elm
even w el l executed intervent ions in project schools. Targeted interventions in urb an ma rgin al areas, as
was the case with P R O D Y M E S 11 are fine conceptually, but sustained performance improve ment m ay
suffer sin ce there i s n o pol i t i ca l economy locus o f dec is ion mak ing for the schools outs ide o f he pro jec t.
Thus, whe n such a project ends, sustainabi li ty proves very di f f icul t , due no t only to budgetary restrict ions,
but also to the absence o f an inst i tut ional locus for cont inuat ion. The proposed Project ’s support o f
nation al educational policie s for rura l education, integr ated with the bi-centenary goals that do n ot o we
their existence to this proposed Project are factors that enhance the chances f or sustained and systemic
pro jec t impact
d) Importance o monitor ing and evaluation: In spite o f substant ial investments in systems to comp i le
educational statistics, there has no t been a commensurate imp rovem ent in the ready avai labi l i ty an d use of
such statistics as important inputs i n to pol icy dec is ion mak ing. The proposed Pro jec t inc ludes a
component for moni to r ing and evaluat ion and provides resources at bot h the nat iona l and prov incia l
levels t o strengthen the m oni to r ing and evaluat ion funct ion. The inclusion o f educational stat ist ics as par t
of nat ional-provincial convenios addresses the need for good moni tor ing and evaluat ion. The project
design puts emphasis o n the timely col lect ion and feedback o f educat ional indicators at var ious levels o f
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educational administrat ion an d provides resources f or the implementat ion and dissemination o f studies
inclu ding those on mpa ct evaluat ion.
e) Importance o Flex ib i l i t y : Investment projects finance inputs.A ke y learnin g experience relates to the
need to build in to p roje ct design a process that enhances the flexibility o f ac tivi ties in order to achieve
product iv i ty o f those inputs. The detailed and disaggregated p r ior d ef ini t ion o f act iv i t ies to b e f inancedunde r the propos ed Project, over a fiv e year period and across mu ltip le urisdictions, requ ired foresight to
def ine the opt imal input mix to meet the development objectives. Experience shows that imple men tation
tends to slow do wn wh en circumstances change and alterations to the or iginal plan req uire agreement by
mult ip le par t ies. To address this, the proposed Project incorporates flexi bi l i ty by prov iding o nly a general
def ini t ion regarding possible inputs, an understanding o f the process by whic h those inputs w o u l d b e
employed so as to mon i tor and o btain the results and a system for annual review an d revis ion on he basis
o f ntermediate results.
4. Alternatives considered and reasons for rejection
Nat ional vs . Provincial Loans. One alternative considered was a combina tion o f selected pro vincia l loans
instead o f a nat ional loan. This al ternat ive would involve prohibi t ively high transactions costs both for
prep aratio n as we ll as implementation. A lso, in a scheme o f provincial loans, the provinces with the most
needy beneficiaries may be the ones least able to incur indebtedness, and such a scheme would not be
able to ut i l iz e the federal context o f Argent ine educat ional pol icy, where the Federal Governmen t has an
impor tant ro le to p lay in redressing inequal i ty a nd resolv ing problems o f quality.
SWAp. Since the projec t supports n ation al programs, i t wo uld seem a logical step to prepare this project
as a Sector W ide Appro ach (SWAp), where there wo uld be a full mingling o f esources f ro m the Nat ional
Treasury and from Bank f inancing for project intervent ions. This project al ready meets one important
object ive o f SWA PS that seeks to reduce transact ion costs s ince paral lel ins t i tut ional mechanisms wo uld
n o t be set up, other than those o f exist ing federal programs where execut ion i s cooperat ively done with
provinces. However, with rega rd to fin ancia l f low s and procurement arrangements, the Gov ernm ent has
indicated i t s interest in beingable to cont inue a separation o f he f inancial sources and to fol low the Ban k
procedures.
With an investment len ding operation that supports results and i s i n tegra l l y l inked to educat ional po l i cy
measures, another alternative c ould hav e been a Develop ment Po licy L en din g (DPL) operation. However,
in addi t ion to the policy aspects, the proposed operation also covers unmet investment needs for the
expansion o f educational services in ur al areas. Further, in he current C A S as we l l as the upcoming CA S
under discussion, there i s a clear emphasis on investment le ndi ng in the Bank ’s por t fo l io in Argentina. In
a detai led c l ient survey carr ied out as par t o f he C AS preparat ion, a k ey finding was the pub lic preference
for the Ban k to invest more in Argentina in projects fo r education, hea lth and infrastructure.
C. IMPLEMENTATION
The imp leme ntatio n arrangements fo r this Projec t c losely fo l low the pr inc ip le o f par tnership with theGovernment in the del ivery o f he nat ional program o f ura l education. The implement ing agency wou ld
be the National Ministry o f Educat ion, Science and Techno logy (MECyT), through i t s Directorate
General for the Unit o f In ternat ional F inance (DGUFI). The DGUFI would be respons ib le for
coordinat ing the var ious act ivi t ies o f the Project with the other agencies o f MECyT as well as other
Federal and Prov incial Government Agencies. The DGUFIalso manages an Inter-A mer ican Developm ent
Bank-f inanced (IDB) Operation (see Annex 2) and has substantial experience with the internat ional
standards o f inancial management and procurement.
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The DGUFI i s not expected to develop technical expertise that already exists in l in e departments o f
national and pro vinc ial education ministries. The R ural Educ ation area i s under the Directora te General of
Curr icu lum Management and Teacher Training (DNGCyFD). The area o f monit or ing and evaluation fal ls
under the Nation al Directorate o f Information and Evaluation o f the Qual i ty o f Education (DNIECE).
Other units such as the Infrastructure Unit o f the ME Cy T wou ld a lso be i nvo l ved in the implementationo f he program. The pro ject implementa tion arrangements wo uld buildon he experience o f hese national
programs. The three ke y MECyT units receive a substantial budget for man agin g the ir respective natio nal
programs. There wo ul d not be any need to set up Project Coordination Uni ts (PCUs) either at the Nationa l
or at the Provin cial levels. Where there i s a particular need to build provinc ial implementation capaci ty,
this would be done by strengthening existing l i ne departments at prov incial Min istr ies o f Education,
rather than throug h parallel administrative units.
National-Provincial convenios or bilateral agreements would be signed that would delineate the
responsibil i t ies o f he national and provi ncial Governments, and in some cases, as with resource transfers
to schools, specify the roles and responsib il i ty at that administrative lev el as well. The bilateral
agreements would be supported by annual work plans with the provinces that would move beyond
specification o f inputs and contain targets about the results expected as outputs from the project
interventions. Rather than a pre-determined and fixed allocation across province s for the duration o f heProject, a l locations w ou ld be made on a year ly basis o f a review o f progress towards compliance with the
previous year’s wo rk p la n and projected activities for the future year’s plan. Provinces that are slow in
implementation o f targets w oul d receive help and special attention fro m the national level . Continuedproblems in implementation at the Provincial level wou ld put at r i s k the allocatio n o f esources across to
non-perfor ming provinc es. Details about the bilateral agreements are provid ed in Annex 6 .
1. Moni to r ing and evaluat ion of outcomeshesults
The proposed support o f a national program with implementation through a combination o f national and
provinc ial arrangements makes the role o f monitor ing and evaluation even more impo rtant than in more
tradi t ional input-based projects. Implementation Com pletion Reports o f previous Bank-f inanced
education projects have indicated the need for closer attention to establishing benchmarks early o n in theproject cycle, and for follow -up regarding established targets. In order to ensure the timely and regular
availabil i ty o f data about proje ct implementation, resources have been set aside fo r a special mo nito ring
and evaluation component o f he proposed Project. There wo ul d be three related nterventions in this area.
First, there wou ld be special purpose surveys such as those to f ol lo w the status o f nfrastructure o f ura l
schools. Second, there would be training and technical assistance directed at the provincial level to
encourage the adoption o f the use o f analyt ical wo rk on educational pol icy . Third, there would be
attention placed on dissemination activities inc ludin g the establishment o f systems t o generate periodic
information o n Project implementation. Information on the success or otherwise in meet ing targets used
for project supervision wou ld also be devolved to the educational establ ishments wh o w ou ld benefi t f ro m
the Project. Constant attention to the mon itor ing o f outcomes and results, as we ll as the dissemination o f
results, including the tracking o f project expenditures and involvem ent o f civ i l society organizations is
expected to im prov e governance and accou ntabil i ty that i s crucia l to the success o f he proposed P r ~ j e c t . ~
Detai ls about monitor ing indicators are provided in Annex 3.
3 MECyT already collaborates closely with NGOs regarding oversight o f the use o f pub l ic resources for school
infrastructure.
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The support for an integrated nat ional progra m within a federal framework, such as the Nati on al Program
for R ur al Educat ion, brings benef its o f cont inu i ty in Government pol icy and reduces the uncertainty
regarding sustainabi l i ty in a project. In he case o f nat ional programs, the ro le o f he dec is ion mak ing o f
the Federa l Educat ion Counc i l (Consejo Federal) i s very important-the NPRE i s supported byresolut ions and declarations o f the Consejo Federal. Apar t f rom the ins t itu t ional ro le p layed by the
Consejo Federal, sustainabil i ty i s also aide d by the operational level deliberat ions inv olv ing provinces.
The p ropo sed Proje ct’s goals have a modest fiscal impa ct. Increasing the enrollm ent at the Pre-School and
EGB3 levels in ru ra l areas, with the use o f pedagogical and administrat ive models that re ly o n multi-
grade teaching an d the use o f tinerant teachers, tutors and supplemental material for students wo ul d have
only a smal l marginal impact in te rms o f the teacher wage bill. Improvements in ef f i c iency f rom the
accelerated programs f or over-age chi ldren and attent ion t o problems o f repet i t ion and dropout w ou ld
actual ly lead to improvements in the eff ic iency o f exist ing resources. The economic analysis in Annex 9
presents some basic simulations regardin g he analysis o f sustainabil i ty o f he project interventions.
3. Critical risks and possible controversial aspects
Possible Risk Factor
1. Poor implementationcapacity in provinces would
delay execution o f the
program.
2. Transfer o f project
management from a PCUapproach to management by
l i ne units o f M E C y T may face
capacity constraints.3. The project may besuccessful in provid ing inputs,but outputs and outcomes may
not be attained.
4. A re-emergence o f crisis
conditions ma y lead to severe
cutbacks in Governmentexpenditures
asin
the 2000-2002 period.
Overal l Risk
Proposed Mitig atio n Measures
a) Detai led Insti tutional Analysis o f ProvincialCapacity leading up to insti tutionalstrengthening measures in the National -Provincia l convenios.
b) Close and constant mon itoring o f projectimplementation and remedial action in case o fproblems.
a) Provisio n o f echnical assistance to l ine units o fM E C y T .
b) High pr ior i ty p laced by Government onstrengthening o f Ru ral Educat ion U ni t of
M E C y T .a) Inclusio n and monitorin g o f outputs and
outcomes in National-Provincial bi lateralagreements.Ut i l i za t ion o f results o f impact evaluation and
other studies incorporated into th e project
design.Flexibility in def ini t ion of nputs to be financed
by the project.
b)
c)
a) Improved portfol io monitoring procedures put
in place by the Bank’s Country ManagementUnit after the last crisis would provide earlywarning.
b) Current pol i t ical and economic situationindicates stability (this i s not a mi t igat ion
measure).
Risk Rating
Substantial
Medium
Substantial
Medium
Substantial
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8/8/2019 PROJECT APPRAISAL DOCUMENT ON A PROPOSED LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF US$l50.00 MILLION TO THE ARGENTINE…
Loan Effectiveness would require signed bi lateral agreements between the Federal Government and at
least tw o Provinces. The project will be carr ied out fol lowing the requirements o f an Operat ional Ma nua l
that wil l includ e amon g others the fiduciary and technical requirements o f the project, including the
selection and implementation requirements of the provincial subprojects and the school managedactivit ies. T he pro ject wou ld also includ e disbursement conditions requ ir ing for each Province where the
pro ject wo ul d be implemented, a signed bi latera l agreement and a satisfactory finan cial management and
procurement assessment o f he province.
APPRAISAL SUMMARY
1. Econo mic an d financ ial analysis
Annex 9 reports the findings o f the economic and financia l analysis, and i t i s summarized here. The
Ann ex presents the findings f ro m a recent ly conducted Rura l Household Survey (RHS) carr ied out fo r a
study on ru ra l pover ty in Argentina. The survey o f isolated rural areas i s smal l in scale (with 414
households sampled in the provin ces o f Chaco, Santa Fe, Santiago del Estero, an d Mendoza) incompar ison to the wide ly used Permanent Household Survey (Encuesta Permanente de Hogares or EPH)
that covers urb an areas in Argentina. H owev er, wage earnings regressions repo rted in th e study prov ide
important insights regarding the potent ial benef its o f his Project. Fol low ing the presentation o f data fro m
the rur al house hold survey, a cost-benefit analysis o f he Proje ct is presented that indicates an interna l rate
o f e tu rn o f 14.3 percent under conservative assumptions. T he second part o f Annex 9 ident i f ies the f iscal
impact o f the investment, wh ich appears t o be min or considering the magni tude o f educat ional
expenditures in Argentina.
2. Technical
The technical just i f icat ion of the Project i s based on three grounds: (i)ime l y comple ti on o f he ob l iga to r y
years o f basic educat ion in rura l Argent ina wo uld b e an impor tant e lement to reduce inequal i ty and
pover ty , and contr ibute to improved product iv i ty o f he wo rk force in the lo ng term; (ii)he focus o f thisProject i s to provide educat ional inputs under a national program, with bilateral agreements with
provin ces to enhance accountabil i ty; a nd (iii)he l im i ted but impor tant investment o f the Pro jec t indeepening the use o f information and educat ional research wou ld be ve ry use ful in malung marginal
improvements towards stronger analyt ical foundations o f educat ional pol ic y.
3. Fiduciary
Financ ial Management and Audit Arrangements : The pro jec t w ould be implemented using the exist ing
structures that are in place at the DGUFI. Add i t iona l arrangements regarding project imple menta t ion at
the prov inc ia l level would be implemented to coord inate the f lo w o f funds and in format ion. At the
central level, the MECyT, through the DGUFI, would be respons ib le for car ry ing out f inanc ia l
management, procurement and disbursement activit ies, as well as for monitoring and supervising thef iduciary arrangements at the provincial level . Provincial Governments would use their planning,
finan cial management systems, and in tern al cont rol arrangements, e.g. M&E, f iduciary management and
intern al arrangements, for supervising the ru ra l school clusters.
A number o f measures have been agreed during project preparat ion to address the inhe rent comp lexi t ies
o f f iduciary oversight for a decentral ized operat ion. These include (i)he f inancing scheme for the
Project, under wh ich some expendi tures wo ul d be pai d at the Nation al Governmen t level throug h the
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8/8/2019 PROJECT APPRAISAL DOCUMENT ON A PROPOSED LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF US$l50.00 MILLION TO THE ARGENTINE…
DGUFI. Even though the DGUFI s w el l organized and has experience fr om previous projects, i t wou ld
benefit fr om the p ro vi si on of technical assistance to coordinate actions at the operational leve l regarding
bo th national and pro vinc ial l i ne departments; and (ii)he strengthening o f he fiducia ry capacity at some
o f he weakest provinces that wou ld be required for the province to part icipate in he project. Th e DGUFI
wo uld prov ide ad ministrat ive and financial management support to the project and wo ul d be responsible
for al l payments or ig inated at the Federal Government level directly to providers, contractors andconsultants inc lud in g the transfers made to the Prov incia l level and Rur al School Clusters. TheProvincial Government level would be responsible to contract and directly pay contractors and
consultants hire d by them. The DGUFI wou ld have the ma in funct ion in this case o f consolidating the
financial management information , and supervising the use o f project resources according to the project
objectives and the financia l planning.
The Project’s Operational Manual would include procurement, disbursement, in-kind contribution,
financial management an d interna l contro l procedures and processes Th e DGUFI’s and the init ial selected
provinces’ financial management capacity i s in the process o f bein g strengthened with the support o f
technical staff. The finan cial statements o f the Project would be audited annually by the Comptroller
General (AGN). The DGUFIwo ul d be responsible f or c ollecting finan cial management data, accounting,
reporting, and ensuring external auditing o f all project-related expenditures. Ann ual a udit reports wou ld
be completed by AGN, and forwarded to the Bank within six months o f he end o f each f isca l year. TheProject financial statements audits w ou ld be conducted fol low in g natio nal audit standards compatible
with International Organization o f Supreme Audit Inst i tut ions ( INTOSAI). The Project wo uld have
external audit arrangements for the central Government and al l provinces, w hi ch wo ul d o in the Project,under the responsibi l i ty o f AGN. This arrangement requires that external auditors would provide a
tradi t ional independent audit o in t ly with the support o f he MECyT intern al audit unit in order to provid e
technical assistance during the f iscal year. The Project incorporates the Bank’s n ew p ol ic y on el ig ibi l i ty
for Ban k f inancing. T o im plement the pol icy, the Country Financing Parameters for Argentina were
approved by th e LCR Regional V ice President in M a y 2005.
A special account (SA) wo ul d be required to transfer resources fro m the Ba nk based o n the requirements
to be made by the Government. The Bank wou ld f inance up to 90 percent o f he project total expenditures
effectively made by the project. Lo an proceeds wou ld be disbursed at a rate o f up t o 90 percent to coverthe cost o f goods, works, services and flat recurrent costs requir ed to imp lem ent the bilater al agreement.
The t e rm s and conditions f or the advance o f finds f rom the S A to the provinces wou ld be agreed in eachbi lateral agreement. The Ban k wo uld monito r the Government o f Argentina’s assessment o f the
insti tut ional performance o f each part icipating Province fo r the purpose o f adjusting the size o f the
advances in the future. As i t s customary in Argentina, the Government wou ld open a SA, as a rev olv ing
bank account to pre-finance proj ect expenditures for al l components and wo ul d request reimbursement for
the Bank’s share o f he f inancing. Requests fo r reimbursement w oul d be submitted to the Ba nk on the
basis o f Statements of Expenditure (SOEs). Resources wo uld be transferred f ro m the W or ld Ba nk to a
Ministry o f F inance t ransi tory Bank Account a t the B IS Ban k in Base1 in dollars. The Ba nk wou lddisburse to the Government based on transaction-based disbursement requests sent by the DGUFI.
Resources would be transferred fr om the W or ld Ban k to a special account open at the Banco de la Naci on
Argentina in dollars. An operative b ank account in pesos wo uld be also open at “Banco de la Naci6n” on
the name o f he DGU FV ME CyT to manage resources t ransferred f rom he SA .
An assessment o f the procurement capaci ty was carr ied out f or the implementing agency DGUFIand for
one of the Provinces that w ou ld be responsible for the imple men tatio n o f the sub-projects (Province of
Misiones). The overall procurement r i sk i s assessed as AVERAGE. In order to mit igate risks, specialprocurement provisions are bein g include d in the Loa n Agreement and a Procurement Actio n Plan has
been agreed. DGUFI wo ul d organize a procurement team consis ting o f at least one senior procurement
specialist and two junior procurement special ists, a l l o f hem should be already fami l iar with the Bank’s
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proc urem ent guidelines, documents an d procedures. This team would assess the implementing capaci ty
o f he selected provinces and determine the level o f risk invo lved in he case o f each beneficiary Province
using a method ology acceptable to the Bank . The team wou ld establish an Excel-based info rma tion
system to mo nito r pro ject and procurement progress.
4. Social
The national p rogram supported by this proj ect has been discussedwidely with ci vi l society. There are n o
con trov ersia l social issues associated with this project. A br ief summary o f he consultat ions i s presented
in Annex 10 in connection with the support being provide d under the project fo r education in rura l areas
where student beneficiaries include those f ro m indigenous families, m ai nl y in the NEA and NOA regions
o f he country. The Indigenous People’s Development Pla n ( IPDP) i s presented in Annex 10 and has been
duly discussed and divulge d in accordance with Ba nk disclosure policies.
5. Envi ronment
This Project does not support the large-scale construction o f new schools. However, the project does
include civi l works activi t ies in general o f a sm al l scale for the repair and rehabi l i tation o f exist ing
schools. In the case that provinces do undertake such construction activities, they would undertake
prev enti ve measures to limit environmenta l damage. A template o f environmental guidel ines to be used inpossible constru ction contracts has been presented to the Bank; and these guidelines w ou ld be inclu ded as
p a rt o f an Env ironmental Management Frame work (EMF) in he Operations Ma nu al for the project.
6. Safe guar d policies
Safeguard Policies Triggere d by the Project Yes No
Envi ronm enta l Assessment (OP/BP/GP 4.0 1) [X I [INatural Habitats (OP/BP 4.04) [IPest Manageme nt (OP 4.09) [ICultu ral Property (OPN 11.03, being revised as OP 4.11) [IInvo lunta ry Resettlement (OP/BP 4.12) [IIndigenou s Peoples (OD 4.20, being re vised as OP 4.10) [XI
[X I
[X I
Forests (OP/BP 4.36) [I [X I
Safety o f Dams (OP/BP 4.37) 11 [XI
Projects in Disputed Areas (OP/BP/GP 7.60) [I [X I
Projects on nternational Waterways (OP/BP/GP 7.50) [I [X I
The National Program for Rural Education supported by the Project i s associated with a program o f
intercul tural and bi l ingual education (Programa de Educacidn In tercu l tura l B i l ing i ie or PEIB) fo r
indigenous groups in Argentina, about 50 p erc en t o f w h o m l i v e in ru ra l areas. There are approxim ately
500,000 indigenous people in Argentina, in clud ing the fol low in g ethnic groups: Collas, Chiriguano-
and Tehuelche. Annex 10 includes a presentation about the status o f education regarding indigenou spopulations in Argentina and discusses the support o f the project to the education o f chi ldren in
indigenous communities living in rural areas. The IPDP i s also presented in Annex 10 and has been duly
discussed and divulge d in accordance with Ba nk disclosure pol icies.
7. Policy Exceptions a nd Readiness
No po li cy exceptions are expected.
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8/8/2019 PROJECT APPRAISAL DOCUMENT ON A PROPOSED LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF US$l50.00 MILLION TO THE ARGENTINE…
Argen tina B razil Chile Mexico Uruguay Korea Canada Greece Italy Portug al Spain
Increasing ncome inequality:The increase o f educational attainment shown in he above table contrasts
marked ly with the d is tr ibut ion o f income in the past three decades or so. Data are available only for
Greater Buenos Aires, but i t i s remarkable that the Lorenz curve for income shown in Figure 1 has keptFigure 1: Lorenz Curves - Distribution of Equivalized Household expanding outward. The Gini
coeff icient for the distr ibution o f
household per capita income increased
from 34.5 in 1974 to 53.8 in 2002,whi le the poverty headcount rat io
increased from around 5 percent to
more than 50 percent in the same
period. In “Argentina’s Distr ibutional
Fa i lu re : The ro le o f In tegra t ion and
Public Policies”, by Leonard0
Gaspar in i, Nat iona l Un ivers i ty o f L a
Pla ta , C ED LA S Wo rk in g Paper # 1,
Sept. 2003 (source o f Figu re l),he
- i s n - - 9w . m e - m- ~ so z - . -+ -sow author claims that there are no
countries in Lat in Amer ica and the
Caribbean that experienced suc h dramatic changes in the income distr ibution. Education i s often posi ted
to be the engine o f reducing social inequality, wh ic h makes eminent com mon sense-absent significant
physical asset redistribution, education potentially affords children from poor or relatively less well-offfamil ies to acquire sk i l l s that would, in principle, help them to overcome their disadvantage at birth.
However, in Argentina over the past few decades, as the average educational attainment grew, the
inequal i ty also grew dramatically. In order to understand this mystery, i t i s impor tan t to l ook a t
productiv ity, since the link between education and incomes comes throu gh productivi ty.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.D 1
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Contribution o f Human Capital to Productivity: The simplest evidence regarding the link between
huma n capi tal and prod uct iv i ty can be obtained by an empir ical estimation o f a Cobb-Douglas produc t ion
Output per
Worker
funct ion. Using data f rom 1991 f rom
155 countr ies, Hall and Jones
analyzed the patterns o f output per
worker, using th e United States as astandard. Output per worker i s
regressed o n a measure o f physical
capi tal and human capi tal and the
residual i s at t r ibuted to product iv i ty
that cannot be measured directly.
Table 2 presents an excerpt o f he data
for a subset o f countr ies with a focus
on the example o f Argentina. The
table shows that the ou tput per worker
in Argentina was 42 percent o f ha t inthe US., about the numb er that could
be expected for a middle- income
developing country . Workers f ro m
D ue t oue t odifferences in differences inPhysical Hu ma n Residual
Cati tal CaDital Di f ferences
Un ite d States
N or w ay
Canada
Hunparv
1.00 1oo 1 oo 1 oo0.76 1.20 0.91 0.70
0.94 1 oo 0.91 1.03
0.3 1 1.12 0.93 0.29
Poland 0.241 1.281 0.801 0.24
Argentina have 68 percent o f he Huma n Capi tal o f he numeraire U.S. worker , so the years o f attainment
(used to measure Hu ma n Capital) does no t quite explain the large differenc e in overal l product iv i ty, and
the difference in the residual i s closer to I rela nd than the Eastern Europ ean countries. I t s probable that
the product iv i ty di f ference i s due to differences in educational qual i ty, and due to the distr ibut ion o f
educational attainment within the country.
I re land
Argentina
L ow educational quality and skewed distribution:The Program f or Internat ional Student Assessment
(PISA) provides a v ery us eful understanding o f educat ional qual i ty benchmarke d to an internat ional
0.58 1.051 0.771 0.71
0.42 0.951 0.681 0.65
Figure 2: C D F o f PISA Test Score 2000: Selected Comparison
700
600
500
400
300
200
120 40 60 80 100
context. -The data f or the P IS A assessment
for mathematics provides a reveal ing
picture. Considering mathematics scores, i f
we arrange the pa rt ic ipat ing countries by th eaverage score, Argentina, with a score o f
388, comes in at the e ighth f rom the bot t om
amongst 43 part ic ipat ing countr ies. The
average scores range from a high o f 564
(Netherlands) to a l o w o f 292 (Peru), with
the average o f country averages being 473,
indicat ing that Argent ina's score i s m u c h
below the average. I t i s mo re interest ing t o
note that i f the countr ies are ranked
according to the di f ference in average scores
o f th e t o p 5 percent i le and the bottom 95
percentile, Argentina's r an k fal ls precipitously, second fr o m the bottom, with only Is rael showing h igher
inequal i ty. The cumulat ive distr ibut ion funct ion (CDF) comparing some countries makes this po in t
vividly-the top 20 percent o f students in Argentina (third i ne going d ow n f ro m the top) score more than
500 points, The second l ine from the top i s U S A , a n d i t crosses the 500 ma rk at about 60 percent -meaning that 60 percent o f the students in U S A scored less than 500. Thus, 20 percent o f Argent ine
chi ldren scored better than 60 percent o f chi ldren in t he USA . I f we imagine tak ing these 20 percent o f
Argent ine ch i ldren to the Un i te d States, a country with four t imes the per capi ta GDP in PPP terms (i t
w o u l d b e 8 times in terms o f nom inal exchange rates) , they wo ul d be do ing better than the median U S
chi ld, or al ternat ively, they wo uld b e perform ing much better than other groupings o f s imi lar s ize in the
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8/8/2019 PROJECT APPRAISAL DOCUMENT ON A PROPOSED LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF US$l50.00 MILLION TO THE ARGENTINE…
U S A . At the same t ime, at the bottom end o f he distr ibut ion, Argent ina crosses over to be belo w Ch i le
and Peru. In Argentina, therefore, the high per form ing students d o mu ch better than at least the general
regiona l pattern, and the l o w performin g students do m uc h worse.
Nexus between Equity and Quality: Figu re 2 above shows on ly the distr ibution o f he test scores and
no t incomes. However, there i s a close correlation between student achievement and fam ily ba ckgro undand income. A recent Bank repor t (“Building a Ski l led Labor Force for Sustained and Equi table
Econ omic Growth”, W o r l d Ba nk 2005) reports fro m a regression analysis o f hree di f ferent kinds o f est
scores, including the PISA, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the
ONE, Argentina’s ow n nation al standardized test. The authors also u sed multiple measures o f household
resources, inc lud ing hous ehold income. Th e authors report “Consistent with prio r research on the factors
associated with learning in Argentina and in other countries, our analyses also find that fami ly
background i s closely related to student achievement. Parental education i s strongly associated with
student achievement in al l three assessments. Children o f better educated parents, have higher scores, on
average, in all three assessments evaluated for this report. This consistent result indicates that
intergenerat ional mo bi l i ty in educational attainment and q ual ity remains a challenge.”
Regio nal Disparities: There are sig nifican t disparit ies in terms o f access to pre-school educat ion and to
EG B3 or lo wer secondary educat ion. Pr imary Educat ion (EGB1& 2) has universa l coverage, th oug h thisl eve l i s plagued by problems o f neff ic iency. The table below shows the coverage across the provincia l
jur isd ic tions a nd by urban and rura l areas within a Province. No te the lo w f igures fo r coverage o f Pre-Sch oo l (age 5 years) in some provinces, su ch as the 44.6 percen t coverage in rura l areas o f Chaco. In he
age-group o f 12 to 14 years, corresponding to EGB 3, th e figures sh owi ng coverage in the seventies and
eighties in percentage terms correspond to the poorer No rt h Eastern and No rt h Western Provinces.
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Guarantee equipment and modernization o f technical schools an d the necessary
pedagog ical transformations in order to reach the federally agreed quality standards for
competency-based national certifications o f echnical and vocational education.
Strengthen democratization, quality, innovation and relevance o f higher-leve l education.
Gi ve prestige t o science and technology research, guaranteeing the goals proposed fo r theScience and Technology Pluri-annual Plan approved by the Cabinet Committee on
Science and Techno logy (GACTE C).
Increased Educational Expenditures within an accountability framework: In order to meet these
goals, the Go ver nme nt has proposed legis latio n that seeks to increase the am ount o f publ ic expenditure on
education fro m 4.2 to 6 percent o f GDP, distributed between the Na tion al and Prov inc ial Governments,
with the Nationa l Government potentia l ly contr ibuting 40 percent and Provinces potent ially cont ributing
60 percent o f the increment in expenditures. The proposed changes in the framework o f educational
financing w ou ld inc lude the l inkage o f ncremental resources for education to three factors regarding each
Province: (i)ctual enrollmen t (a weigh t o f 80 percent); (ii)ontr ibut ion o f rura l to to ta l enro l lment (a
weight o f 10 percent); and (iii)opulat ion o f 3 to 7 year chi ldren out o f school (a weight o f 10 percent).
The proposed project i s but a sm al l part o f he overal l p icture regarding publ ic educational expenditures
and the associated reforms. The project would make federal resources available to Provinces for ruraleducation, with Province s co ntribu ting resources in erms o f eachers’ salaries.
The MECyT makes grant transfers that averaged US$550 million to provinces for non-university
education. The Ministry o f Education (MECyT) has spent an average o f US$1,500 mi l l i on per year
between 1995 and 2005. Of this expenditure, approximately U S$550 mi l l io n or AR$1,600 mi l l i on i s fo r
non-university expenditures that are spent as federal grant transfers to provinces, as shown in Table 4
be low. In the table, the entry for FONID refers to the Incentive Fund for Teachers (Fondo de Incentivo
Docente) that i s a federal supplement to th e prov incial salaries o f eachers. O ther federal transfers are for
qual i ty and compensatory programs. Th e M E C y T budget between 2004 and 2005 increasedby 17 percent
after a drop o f 40 percent between 1999 and 2004. An increase in 2006 simi lar to the magnitude for 2005
i s foreseen.
Table 4: Federal Education Expenditures (MECyT): 1995 - 2005
Source: MECyT; * Figure for 2005 shows programm ed expenditure
Provinces in the North East and North West that represent the greatest education deficit are the
ones that are most dependent o n Federal Co-participation Transfers: Table 5 shows the provinces
arranged in descending order o f dependence o n National Transfers. The provinces at the bottom o f he l i s t
are the very NEA an d NOA provinces that have the greatest def icit in te rms o f prov is ion o f educationa l
services as shown in Table 3. These are the poorer provinces in the country, and their lo w revenue
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col lect ion i s st rongly linked to the lowe r level o f economic act iv i ty. The table shows that only a f ew o f
the pro vince s escape the dependence on na tiona l transfers. Other tha n the Ci ty o f Buenos A ir es , this
inc ludes the Patagonian provinces that receive o i l revenues. This regional inequal i ty in Argentina i s very
impor tant when i t comes to considerations o f nation al expenditures for education-the capacity o f the
most needy p rovinces to raise their ow n revenues m ay be v ery l im i ted in some cases, an d even the no t so
needy provinces in the Pampa region (Entre Rios, Santa Fe, C6rdoba) a nd the Cu yo re gion (Mendoza,San Juan, San Lu is, L a Pampa) are dependent on nation al transfers. The case o f he Provin ce o f Buenos
A i res i s complete ly unique an d i s no t discussed further here, except to say that the projec t does no t inten d
to m ake large transfers to this Province.
Jur isdict ion
Table 5: Prov incial Dependence o n National Transfers (Year 2003)In thousands of pesos
I I
Tota l Receipts (Own Provincial own Provincial own
Federal transfers are in principle based on non-discretionary rules, but in practice significantdiscretionary elements have entered into the picture: Table 6 shows the provinces arranged in
descending order o f he provin cial per capita income. I t can be seen at a glance fro m the table, com par ing
th e f i r s t and last column of numbers in he table, that there was n o clear comp ensatory pattern to transfers,
though provinces with highper capi ta income are n ot necessar ily r icher in erms o f he popu la ti on o f poor
or those in greater need o f social services. The simple correlat ion coeff ic ient between the two columns o f
1,158,405.49 174,35 1 OO 15.05
864,803.53 111,550.50 12.90
755,741.73 92,625.83 12.26
674,760.49 60,282.45 8.93
778,671.65 59,432.4 1 7.63
41,846,870.3 1 19,388,120.62 46.33
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Figure 3: Per Student Expenditurescompared to Province Total Fiscal
Resource per Capita
Expenditure per Stude nt (Current Pesos, Av. Annual for 1994-
*'O0' 3,000 1
500 -
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000
Total Fiscal Resources per Resident of Province
Whereas Table 6 and Figure 3 deal with general transfers per capita and consolidated education
expenditures per student respectively, i t i s useful to examine the incidence across provinces o f specific
transfers in educational programs direct ed through MECyT. Table 7 shows that there is s t i l l a positive
correlation between prov inc ial education per spending and national transfers (the value o f he correlation
coefficient, no t show n in the table, i s 0.27). Given the inequal i ty al luded to ear lier regarding provin cialspending, i f he national transfers ha d been perfectly compensatory, there wo ul d have been a negative orat least an absence o f a positi ve cor relation between the tw o amounts. I t should be noted that even though
i t may no t be so good for inter-provincial equity; the more posi t ive the correlation, fr om a point o f vie w
o f encouraging f iscal effort fro m the provinces, the less tendency there w ou ld be for national crowding
ou t o f provi ncial expenditures.
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Table 7: Comparisons o f Education Spending per Student andNationa l Educational Programs
Source: CIPPEC, 2005; Figures are in current pesos o f the period.
Table 7 shows that for a c hi l d born in NeuquCn or Santa Cruz, the State spends AR$2,000 or AR$2,800
on one year o f educat ion, and for a ch i ld bo rn in Misio nes o r Chaco, this f igure i s around AR$800. Th e
differences in expenditures are related to differences in teacher salaries, and in the nu mber o f teachers
employed, a nd to a lesser extent on non-wage expenditures. T he wage bill accounts for roughly 90percent o f expendi tures. Doe s a high er pa id teacher necessar ily mea n a better qua l i ty o f education? This i s
a diff ic ult question to answer, butan interest ing analysis reported by Mezzadra and R ivas i s that there was
an inverse correlation bet ween the days los t to teacher str ikes a nd the average teacher salary. In addition,there i s a strong correlat ion between high er pa id teachers and the presence o f aux il iary o r support services
to teachers and non-salary expenditures. In general, the co nclusio n reached by the var ious authors wh o
have exam ined pub lic edu cational expenditures in Argentina’s federal an d decentral ized environment i s
the fol lowing-there are impo rtant differences in the general f iscal effor t made by provinces and in th e
distr ibut ion o f provincia l f iscal resources fo r educat ion as compared to other areas o f expenditure, and
reforms should be made to encourage greater provincial f iscal effort, in general and for education in
particular. At the same time, the marg in for imp roveme nt within the envelope o f he ex is t ing pattern o f
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distr ibut ion o f esources across provinces wo uld not be suff ic ient to address the dispari t ies in educational
opportunity, and there i s a need for transparent and non-discretionary transfers f ro m the national
Gov ernm ent to address the fundamental o r structural inequalities.
Solving the problem of inequality and inefficiency in expenditures through tied and matching
transfers from the Federal Government: The pol ic y response o f he Federal Government i s to make ama rgin al effo rt at change, pro vide earmarked fiscal resources for education to provinces, f ol lo w
pr inciples o f transparency and provide adequate attent ion to issues o f accountabi l i ty fo r the expected
resul ts. The pro ject seeks to serve as an example o f h o w the nat ional Government can provide d i rect
assistance to pro vince s to imp rove the qu ality o f educational services in the area o f ural education, whi le
at the same t im e encouraging provinces to take ownership o f the program and to increase their o w n
commitment to the educational sector. The use o f mul ti -grade ins t ruc tion impl ies a l owe r need to hi re
mor e teachers as compared to the standard mo del o f one teacher per section. Proje ct interventions to
reduce repetit ion, overage and drop-out in rural areas would resul t in more students being retained
product ive ly in the educational system. In this way, the pro jec t woul d not lead to a worsening o f the
si tuat ion regarding eff ic ient teacher deployment, and ma y even lead to marginal improvements. However,
the project i s not going to so lve the general problem o f nef f ic ienc ies in eacher d e p l ~ y m e n t . ~
A series of schematic maps provides a graphic demonstration of the distribution of education gaps
in Argentina’s rural areas. I t i s estimated that roughly 140,000 children in rura l areas do not have
access to pre-school and EGB3, with 70 percent o f those out o f school be longing to NOA and NEA.There are app roxima tely 714,000 child ren in rur al areas in EGBl and EGB2, with 38 percent o f those
chi ldren be ing overage, compared to 23 percent for urban areas. The rur al EGBl and EG B2 enro l lment
f r om the NOA and NEA provinces accounts for ne ar ly 60 percent o f the to ta l rura l enro l lment for the
country, even though NOA and NEA represent only about 20 percent o f Argentina’s populat ion. The f i r s t
ma p shows the geographical area o f provinces, that appears similar in shape to the famil iar geographical
map o f Argentina. The second map shows the distr ibut ion o f he populat io n across provinces, with th e
c i ty o f Buenos Ai res and the Prov ince o f Buenos Ai res d is tor t ing the geographica l map ow ing to the i r
huge populations. Th e third ma p shows the rur al students in school , w hic h indicates the inf luent ial weig ht
of the NOA an d NEA provinces. In the last map, showing gaps in rural coverage, the distortion i s
completely towards the NOA an d NEA provinces.
4 This problem does not appear as serious when the provincial distr ibut ion o f teachers in the NOA and NEA
provinces i s considered. The n ational average o f students pe r teacher i s 16 at the EGBl and 2 levels, which i s l o w
compared to international standards. However, a number o f those classified as teachers are in fact ad ministrat ive
staff rather than teachers, and al l he NOA and NEA provin ces are above t h i s nat ion al average, with the exception of
Catamarca, that comes in with 15.8 students per teacher.
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Component A: Improving Oualitv and Coverage o f Rural Education (US$234.85 million;
US$144.79 million Bank financing)
Objective: The objec tive of this component i s to support improvements in qual i ty and coverage
o f ura l educat ional serv ices in he country.
This component would support improvement in rural educational services through the National
Program for Rura l Educat ion approved by t he Nat iona l Counc i l o f Educa t ion Mini s ter s o f
Argent ina in 2004. T he component woul d f inance the development and appl icat ion o f
pedagogical and organizational models that are appropriately tai lored for the particular social,
cul tural and economic context o f rural households. Act iv i t ies in the prov inces would be
imbedded in the p rovincial educat ion pol ic y formulated around speci fied coverage and q ual i ty
targets, The Nat ional Program for R ura l Educat ion (NPRE) w o u l d be executed throug h signed
Co nv en io s- or bi lateral agreements-between the nat ional and provinc ial Governments.
The NPRE assigns resources to all provinces, with priority to those where the coverage andqual i ty gaps are the greatest. T he distr ibut ion o f esources amon g the provinces wo uld b e based
o n he percentage o f rural popu lat ion and the percentage o f households with unm et basic needs in
the province; detai led cr i ter ia would be def ined in the Project Operat ions Manual . The main
purpose o f his approach i s to use a m ore equi table mecha nism to link the federal resources to the
needs o f provinces, and contr ibute to redress the high l eve l o f d i spar it y in educational spending
across Argen tine regions.
Component activities: This component has three broad sets o f act iv i t ie s-e ac h support ing a
different objective. The f i r s t set o f act iv it ies (A1 below) covers activit ies directed at rural basic
education in general, with out a specification o f he part icular educat ion leve l that wo uld be nefi t ,
The second set o f act iv i ties (A2 below) includes activit ies that are aimed at specific education
levels, ran ging fro m pre-school through to lower secondary or EGB 3. The third set o f ac t iv i ties(A3 below) would provide technical assistance for strengthening l ine departments at the
prov incia l level and capacity buildingo f prov inc ia l u r isd ic t ions in the use o f nfor matio n systems
throug h speci f ic ‘ informatio n projects ’ in each province to m oni t or the per formance indicators o f
ru ra l schools.
Implementation arrangements: This component would use a two-pronged implementat ion
strategy: (i)he f i r s t par t o f he s t rategy refers to the implementat ion o f ac tiv it ies that wou ld be
pa rt of the convenios to be signed by the provinces, but f o r economy o f scale w ou ld be purchased
at the nat ional level and distr ibuted to the prov ince accordingly. This categ ory includes: (a) the
prov is ion o f didact ic materials, t raining mater ials and learning modules, (b) equipment--
television , compu ters, an d also transpo rtation costs; an d (ii)he second par t o f he s t rategy wo uld
include act iv it ies that wo uld b e executed di rect ly by the provinces and schools with resources
transferred by the nat ional level . Each prov inc ia l p lan wo uld inc lude a l l the Pro jec t ac t iv it ies that
wo uld benefi t the educat ion in the province, even those directly developed by the nat ional level .
Investments directly operated by the provinces w ou ld const i tute Provincia l Sub-projects.
Financing: This component w ou ld finance: textbooks, workb ooks , student and teacher guides,
reference books, a udio-visual material, science an d technolo gy equipment and material, sports
and didactic games. The act iv i ty would also include technical assistance to ensure that the
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mater ials work together with training and other inputs so that the mater ials would be used
effect ive ly and eff ic ient ly.
Sub-component A l : Improving Operating Conditions of Rural Schools (US$117.79 million;
US$106.01 Bank financing)
This sub-component covers four act iv i ties that are com mon to al l levels o f compulsory
education-Pre-School, EGB1, EG B2 and EG B3 and special support for indigenous educat ion:
Provision of basic didactic materials and teaching equipment: Didact ic mater ials would
inclu de textbooks, workbooks, student and teacher guides, l ibra ry books, reference books, schoo l
supplies, audio-visual materials, science and technology equipment (computers and televisions)
and software; and sports and didactic games. Each year, the qu antity an d type o f didactic
mater ials fo r the di f ferent levels and modal i t ies o f education levels wou ld be ind icated through
the bi lateral agreements. The didactic materials would be selected takmg into consideration the
NAP (Nzicleos de Aprendizaje Prioritarios).
Minimum School infrastructure standards: This act iv i ty would target schools located inregions where the proble m o f di lapidated infrastructure an d lack o f water and electr ic i ty supply
are greatest. This act iv i ty w ou ld f inance: (a) construct ion o f c lassrooms to absorb addi t ional
enrollment; (b) replacement o f di lapidated schools and rehabi l i tat ion o f school faci li t ies; (c)
furniture; and (d) and school maintenance costs. A basic standard for school infrastructure has
been developed by t he MECyT , wh i ch i s also car ry ing out a survey o f ac tual condi t ions o f a l l
rur al schools in the country. T h i s acti vity has already been impleme nted fo r some 1,000 schools
using project preparat ion funds fkom a PH R D grant. The survey methodology includes the use o f
Geo-Posi t ioning Satell i te o r GPS locators and digi tal images o f bot h the inside and outside o f
buildings. The minimum infrastructure standard assumes that as prerequisites o f schooling, a
school should have a set o f nputs (materials, fu rn i tu re and equipments). Thus, a school operating
at minimum infrastructure standards i s one that i s considered min imal ly capable o f prov id ing
satisfactory condi t ions fo r student learning. Ano ther i te m to be addressed by this act iv i ty i s the
prov is ion o f e lec t ri c ity in the schools. The p rovis ion o f electr ic i ty in school bui lding s in manyrural areas in Argentina has been made possible through PE RM ER, a federal program o f
alternative energy sources fo r ru ra l areas. Depend ing on the specific situation, this pro jec t ac t iv i ty
wo uld support the provis ion o f electr ic i ty to schools no t attended by th e PERMER program. To
preserve the qual i ty o f he school infrastructure in the ru ra l areas, school m aintenance activit ies
wou ld be implemented through the es tablishment o f a R ura l School Maintenance Program, w hich
wo ul d finance the schools’ maintenance costs.
Establishment of Clusters of Rural Schools: T o faci l i tate loca l organizat ion and management,
this activ ity wo ul d support the establishment o f school clusters. These clusters wou ld operate as a
support system for teachers in isolated areas and w ou ld increase the exchange o f experiences inthe r ura l areas. A cluster o f rur al schools wou ld group, m ore o r less, ten schools. The cluster
would provide space for deal ing with a commo n set o f problems wh i le at the same t ime
generating economies o f scale in core fimctions such as educational planning, training and
management o f didactic materials, tea ching equipments, and fin anc ial resources. This act iv i ty
wo ul d finance: (a) techn ical assistance; and (b) operat ional resources for the formation and
funct ion ing o f clusters. Implementat ion arrangements for the c luster act iv i t ies The prov incia l
jurisdictions would assign coordination functions for the cluster to selected supervisors. This
supervisor w ou ld ensure coherence and cont in ui ty o f act iv i t ies amo ng the schools that belon g to a
cluster. The supervisor selected, who should have prior experience as a rural school teacher
and/or school princip al, wo ul d be responsible for (a) resource management, (b) i dent i fy ing
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teacher pro fessio nal development needs in consultation with each school princ ipal and teachers,
and (c) org aniz ing the cluster meetings.
Distance education through the Education TV Channel: This act iv i ty would support the
supply o f technological tools to p ermit schools and students to receive the TV programs
developed by the natio nal Edu cation channel. The component wou ld finance: (a) technical toolsto connect the school TVs with the satellite; and (b) operational costs related to this act iv i ty. In
order to execute this activity, a specific agreement o n technical issues i s required, which the
M E C y T wou ld p resent to the Bank .
Indigenous Education: T h i s act iv i ty w ou ld support the development o f act ions t o increase
awareness o f the cul tural diversi ty e xist ing in the rura l communi t ies and knowledge o f the
tradi t ional language and cul ture o f the indigenous populat ion. This act iv i ty wo ul d f inance: (a)
techn ical assistance an d consultant services for the preparation o f school development plans; (b)
t ra in ing o f the members o f the com muni ty wh o wou ld suppor t the development o f l iteracy
programs and development o f nst i tut ional projects, (c) training programs for schools developing
indigenous education programs; and (d) school development plans. The school development
plans would be designed and evaluated by the school members and other members o f the
communi ty .
Sub-component A2: Expanding Coverage and Improving Student Promotion Flow
(US$106.46 million; US$29.17 Bank financing)
This sub-component wou ld support the development o f our act iv it ies, each o f wh ich corresponds
to a particular ed ucation leve l @re-school, EGB1, EG B2 and EGB3):
Expanding coverage for pre-school education: This act iv i ty wou ld support the ex tens ion o f
pre-school programs in the rural areas through the development and application o f mult i -grade
pre-school models. Several alternative models have been adopted by the provinces in the
prov is ion o f pre-school services to chi ldren in the rura l areas. The expansion o f the pre-school
program wo ul d be made through the: (a) opening o f classrooms for pre scho ol level, where there astrong demand fo r this l e ve l o f education services, or the adop tion o f “plurisalas,” in w h i c h 4 and
5 year olds would attend together; (b) i ncorporat ion o f 5 year o ld ch i ldren in an integrated
“plurigrado” in th e f i r s t cyc le o f EGB; and (c) establishment o f pre-school activit ies by special ly
trained community agents. The extension o f the mo del in the rural areas would include the
fol lowing: (a) provis ion o f eacher guides on act iv i t ies for pre-school children; and (b) technical
assistance and train ing programs fo r teachers. Th e did actic materials fo r pre-schools models
wo uld b e developed under component A1
Reducing repetition in EGBl This act iv i ty would promote organizat ional and pedagogical
act ions to prevent dropout and repet i t ion in th e f i r s t years o f schooling, through a three-pronged
strategy, w hi ch includes: (a) the development o f act ions to increase the reading abi l i ty o f students
in the in iti al grades, inc ludi ng preparatory activit ies at the pre-school level; (b) t he adop ti on o f a
three-year learning cycle, as the fram ewo rk fo r lea rnin g and students’ p romo tion; and (c)
upgrading the curr iculum methodologies for teaching math and other school subjects. T h i s
activity would finance teacher training programs and technical assistance to ensure appropriate
use o f selected educational teaching-learning materials. These teaching-learning m ateria ls wou ld
be financed by sub-component A1 (Para. 7.i).
Acceleration program for increasing students’ attainment in EGB2: In mos t rur a l areas inArgentina, at least, 30 percent o f students 11 or 12 years o f age are over-age in re lat ion to the
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grade, due to repetit ion, dropout and reentry problems. This activity aims to h elp these students
catch up academically, and thereby reduce the serious age grade distortion in EGB2, and would
support the impleme ntat ion o f an accelerated learning program to reduce the impa ct o f previous
repetit ions and to stimulate the capacity for continuing studies. This act iv i ty wo uld f inance:
teacher training, teaching-learning materials, school supervision visits, and technical assistance.
In addit ion, t o he lp with the schooling attainment o f children and adolescents with special needs,the program would f inance the contracting o f specialists w ho w ou ld develop local- lev el models
fo r ear ly detect ion of special education needs and develop mi cr o plann ing with special ized health
services. In order to better attend chi ldren with special needs and learning gaps, a systematic
support system would be developed for basic education teachers. In order to implement thisact iv i ty, fou r operat ions wo uld be considered: (a) Developmen t o f earning modules focusing on
knowledge o f he cent ra l areas o f he Core o f Pr ior i ty Learning. This mater ial should al low each
student to gain know ledge o f he curr iculu m content autonomously and progressively, according
t o h i s h e r ow n pace and learning ski l ls; (b) Teacher training for the app l icat ion o f a pedagogical
and didactic accelerat ion mod el to fo l lo w students’ progress. Teachers would be t ra ined in h o w t o
(i)rganize the learn ing sequences for each student,(i i) organize classroom team w o rk ; and (iii)
prepare Complementary didactic sequences, as needed; (c) Pedagogical support fo r the i n i t ia l
s tage o f implementat ion to make roo m for the necessary adjustments and complementary
act iv i t ies during th e f i rs t three years o f the a ppl icat ion o f the accelerat ion program; and (d)Defini t ion of a normative amendment at the jur isdict iona l level for recog niz ing and encouraging
the accelerat ion mod el and an indicat ion o f he administrat ive requis ites for i t s implementat ion.
Lo we r secondary education (EGB3): Schools that belon ged o the earlier 7-year prim ary school
system wo uld be extended to the 9-year EGB system. The problem o f ensur ing com plet ion o f a l l
nine grades o f compulsory educat ion i s larger than merely ensur ing that a l l ch i ldren in the 8th
grade be enrol led in 9th grade. The statistics on rur al schools fo r the year 2003 reve al that while
there were 67,000 students in the 7 th grade, there were 48,000 students in the 8 th grade and only
42,000 students in the 9 th grade; a net gap o f 44,000 within the same cycle. I f we consider that
there are about 264,000 students in EGB2, the supply gap for offer ing compulsory school ing at
the EGB3 level i s approximately 100,000. T o ex tend mul t i-grade school ing to E GB3, this act iv i ty
wo ul d support: (a) learnin g modules fo r students to be able to w o r k o n t he ir own pace withregu lar guidance; (b) textbooks, workbooks/ma nuals with act iv i t ies adapted to the ru ral context;
(c) audio-visual materia l specifical ly developed for the ru ra l context; (d) school development
plans; (e) train ing fo r teachers to act as tutors for the self-g uided activit ies o f E G B 3 students, an d
(9 t raining o f secondary school teachers wh o wo uld be i t inerant teachers o r placed at nodes o f
rur al school clusters, or ut i l ize distance learning methods (depending o n spec ific rur al context).
School Development Plans: The School Development P lans wo uld consis t o f a set o f
pedagogical and organizat ional act iv i t ies to b e selected and d eveloped by the school communi ty
(teachers, students and parents) that would contr ibute to improve the school and the students’
per formance. The School Development Plan wo uld be deve loped by the local communi ty, with
technical assistance fr om the pro vinc ial jur isdict ion and the MECyT. A wide range o f poss ib le
activities i s contemplated, with t he budgetar y r es t ri c t ion o f a m ax im um o f US$900 per schoo l
over the length of the program. Examples o f ac t iv it ies wou ld inc lude product ive ac t ivi t ies (such
as a vegetable garden), cu ltu ral activit ies (such as mus ic and dance groups), sports, p ub lic hea lth
awareness campaigns and care o f com mun ity resources.
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Sub-component A3: Strengthening Line Departments at the Provincial Levels (US$10.60
million; US$9.61 million Bank financing)
Strengthening Line Departments at the Provincial Level: This subcomponent w ou ld support
the establishment and consol idat ion o f the management capaci ty o f the provinces in the
impleme ntat ion o f the project and sustainabi l ity o f the educat ion pol ic ies and act iv i t ies afterpro jec t complet ion. The main objec tive i s to increase the provincial ministries’ capacity in th e
fol lowing dimensions: planning/information, pedagogical and administrative areas and
moni tor ing. The l i n e departments at the pro vinc ial leve l wou ld also be strengthened to support
project impleme ntat ion and operat ion o f he education system at that level. T o achieve these goals
this sub-component would f inance: (i) echnical assistance and consultancy services for
supp orting the pedagogical, administrative and inform atio n areas o f each province; (b) t ravel
expenses; (c) school supervision services; (d) inf orm at ion system costs; and (e) other opera tion
costs.
Each province would develop a Provincial Plan of Rural Education. This Plan wou ld be
developed with the techn ical assistance o f the MECyT. In addition, this act iv i ty would des ign
capacity building processes/procedures/ instruments and trainin g program s at the pro vin cia l leve l
to train staff members o n the new instruments and procedures fo r increasingrnanagem enthnforrnat iod mon i tor ing and evaluat ion o f education pol ic ies and service del ivery.
These instruments would be def ined through agreed protocols with the national authorit ies
regarding data col lect ion and formatt ing o f reports t o b e made avai lable across d i f ferent
hierarchical levels o f prov incial administrat ion, inclu ding the schools. The output o f these
informat ion pro jec ts wou ld consti tu te an impor tant too l fo r m oni tor ing the national-provincial
bi lateral agreements, and wo uld include provis ions for an independent audi t .
Comuonent B: Enhancinp Stewardshiu Cauacitv o f National Government (US$5.35 million;
US$4.83 million Bank financing)
The Project ’s support fo r the National Program for Ru ral Educat ion uses an organizational mode l
that does no t rel y o n paral lel inst i tut ional structures and functions that wo uld owe their existenceon ly to a Bank-f inanced project. Project implementat ion rel ies o n the exist ing Government
s t ruc tures-ex is t ing units at the MECyT, at the nat ional level , a nd at the Provincial ministr ies o f
educat ion. The Project wo uld f inance a large number o f inputs (as provided in Component A
above) under the framew ork o f he nat ional-provincial Convenio wh ich wou ld es tablish a broad
accountabi l i ty framew ork for the Project. Fo r the accountabi l i ty framew ork to funct ion as
planned, the Proje ct wo ul d provid e assistance for strengthening the pertinent l ine departments in
t he M E C y T .
This component would f inance: (i)onsultant services and technical assistance to increase the
ins t itu t ional capac ity o f l in e departments o f the Ministry o f Educa t ion deal ing with r u r a l
educat ion and information, as we l l as mon i tor in g and evaluat ion act iv it ies; (ii)quipment; (iii)
travel expenses f or supervising the prov inces and schools, and other ope ration costs.
Sub-component B1: Strengthening Line Departments at National Level (US$2.37 million;
US$2.14 million Bank financing)
The inst i tut ional assessment o f he MECyT has resulte d in he ide nt i f icat ion o f specif ic areas that
require inst i tut ional building activit ies for supporting successful project implementation. Since
the Project would support nat ional programs integral ly, the requirements at the nat ional level
would be aimed at strengthening the planning, normative, moni tor ing and evaluat ion and
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implementation support activit ies, with th e bulk o f he support being provide d to the departments
at the MECyT, Le., the area o f Rural E ducat ion that i s placed within the D i rec torate o f Cur r icu lar
Manage ment and Teacher Training (DNGCyFD); and the area o f Eva luation and Statistics, in th e
Di rectorate o f n format ion and Evaluat ion o f School Qual i ty (DNlECE) .
Sub-component B2: Monitoring and Evaluation (US$2.99 million; U S $ 2.69 Bankfinancing)
This sub-component w ou ld support the development and implementat ion o f a system o f data
collection, analysis, dissemination and use o f info rma tion for p oli cy decisions at the national,
province and school levels. I t s expected that the inform ation system wo uld also pro vide inputs
for future expansion o f Project intervent ions a nd for der iv ing lessons learned for appl icat ion o f
educat ional p ol i cy areas no t covered by the Project. T h i s sub-component would finance technical
assistance, an d equipme nt (computers an d software).
This sub-component w ou ld develop the fo l lo win g act iv i ties:-
(i)urveys and Impact Evaluation Studies.Financ ing would be prov ided for a per iod ic
survey on the funct ioning condi t ions o f rural schools and fo r ini t iat in g a longi tudina l
survey o f graduates o f technical schools. Surveys wo uld include those at nat iona l and
provincial levels that would evaluate processes and outputs in the course o f Pro jec t
implementation, and an impact evaluat ion o f a general nature to p rovide insights into the
effectiveness o f pub l ic investments in education;
(ii)tudent learning assessments. The proposed Project wou ld f inance the extension o f
a sample o f standardized nation al student assessments (Operat ivo Nacional de
Evaluacihn or ONE) to ensure representation o f ural schools by province. This act iv i ty
wo uld a lso inc lude the moni tor ing o f progress in the achievement o f he core pr ior i t ies o f
learning (NAP) and diagnost ic information from this assessment to be provided to
indiv idual schools . The moni tor ing o f progress in NAP wou ld be per fo rmed in two ways
- one includes the impleme ntatio n o f standardized assessment tools for r ur al schools inthe alternative years when the ONESare no t conducted; the second i s the implementat ion
of testing at the school and classroom level.
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The fo l lo w in g tables prov ide an ind icat ion o f (i)he magnitude of he system o f ura l educat ion
in Argentina, and a comparison between urban and rur al education; and (ii) n indicat ive
calculat ion of he distr ibut ion o f pro jec t resources across provinces, using an index co mbin ing the
rural enrol lment, the number o f rural schools, the flow bottlenecks and the children outside ofschool in ru ra l areas.
Table 1: Representationo f Rural Schools within Argentine Education System
Source; MECy T, F ro m Relevamiento Annual 2001 and 2002 and ONE 2000': Percent o f students who do n ot enroll in subsequent year. The high percentage for r ura l schools at the EGBl/2 level
reflects migration between schools rather than complete drop-out from the education system, which can be obtained
fr om Household Surveys;- indicates that data were no t available.
Table 2: Distribution o f Rural Component Spending and Al l Public Education Expenditures
Source; Ow n calculations fo r Project expenditures; MECyT for Public Education Expenditures 2003
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The above table shows the distr ibution o f pub lic educational expenditures across the Provinces, as
compared to the distr ibution o f resources for Component A. The calculation i s based o n the
distribution o f the student population across urban and rural areas (index o f urality) and on thePercentage o f households with unmet basic needs (NEI). The Operations Manual for the Project
specifies the me th od used for calculating the dist ribu tion o f esources across Provinces.
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The im plem enta tion arrangements fo r this Project closely fo l low the pr inciple o f partnership withthe Government in the del ivery o f the national programs o f rural education. The implementing
agency wou ld be he Nat iona l Ministry o f Education, Science and Tec hno logy (MECyT), through
i t s Directorate General for the Unit o f International Finance (DGUFI). The DGUFI would be
responsible fo r c oordinating the various activities o f the Project with the other agencies of
M E C y T as we ll as other Federal and Prov incia l Government Agencies. Th e DGUFIalso manages
an Inter-American Development Bank-f inanced (IDB) Operation (see An nex 2) and has
substantial experience with the international standards o f inan cial management and procurement,
The DGUFI s not expected to develop technical expertise that already exists in li ne departments
o f national and pro vincia l education ministries. Th e Rur al Education area i s under the Directorate
General o f Curr iculum Management and Teacher Training (D NGCyF D). The area o f monitor ingand evaluation falls under the National Directorate o f nform ation and Evaluation o f the Qual i ty
of Education (DNIECE). Other units such as the Infrastruc ture Unit o f he MECyT wo uld also beinvolved in the implemen tation o f he program. The project implem entation arrangements w ou ld
build on the experience o f these national programs. The three ke y MECyT units receive a
substantial budget for managing their respective national programs. There w ou ld n ot be any need
to set up Project Coordination Units (PCUs) either at the National or at the Provincial levels.
Where there i s a particular need to build provincial implementation capacity, this wou ld be done
by strengthening existing l ine departments at prov inci al Ministr ies o f Education, rather than
through pa rallel administrative units.
Project execu tion wou ld b e based on the signed agreements betw een the Federal and Provinc ial
min istri es o f education. These agreements, also terme d as Convenios would approve Provincial
Rur al Educa tion Plans and the operational mechanisms f or the ex ecution o f actions. The
agreements wo uld lay out the assignment o f responsibi l i t ies between the tw o levels o fGovernment, descr ibe the m onitor in g mechanism to be used and the re-programming o f the
activities in case o f non-compl iance o f the goals, contain articles that w ou ld be in effect for al l
five years o f project implementation, a nd include annual progra m covenants (Actas deProgramacidn Anual) for a ctiv ities complementary t o the agreement.
At least two provinces must have signed bilateral agreements for the project to be declared
effective, and a particular provin ce can only enter the projec t with th e signing o f a b i la tera l
agreement.
Content o f Bilateral agreements
The agreements wou ld include the fo l low ing duties and facult ies for each o f he involv ed enti ties:
I Duties-Facult ies o f he Na tio n (Ministry o f Education):
0 Appr ove the actions plans for each sub-project (specific activities contemplated).
0 Supervise execution o f he sub-projects and the ful f i l lme nt o f he results indicators.
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0 Present the supporting execution and fiduciary documents (needed fo r fin ancia l aud iting
o f he project’s accounts fol low ing the Loa n Agreement) to the Nat ion.
0 Specify school regulations (school organization, curr icular adjustment, promotion) in
accordance with the project’s objectives.
0 Ap po int school teachers fo r the expansion o f EGB3 as st ipulated in the prov inc ia l
development plan.
0 Take par t in annual meetings t o revie w imp lementat ion progress.
DiagnosticToo l
The bi late ral agreement w ould include an act iv i ty by each province to undertake the diagnostic
wo rk req uired to def ine the gaps o f coverage and in the eff ic iency indicators fo r ru ra l education,
using a standardized method ology developed by th e MECyT for that purpose. Fo r this purpose, a
Complementary Agreement o f Goals and Indicators (Acta Complementar ia de Metas e
Indicadores) w o u l d be signed within six months fr om the signature o f the Bi lat eral Agreement.
The diagnost ic w or k wo uld include an analysis at disaggregated levels, f r o m provincia l
departments and regional un i t s to the level o f school communit ies and schools. The diagnost ic
w o r k w o u l d b e a k e y input into determining the annual goals to be agreed upon, and wo uld be
used as a tool to define progress in adhering to the annual plan, as well as an input for the
ident i f icat ion o f rescheduled act ions. The protoco l for the diagnost ic to ol wo ul d be inclu ded in
the Operat iona l Man ual fo r the project.
Phased Approach
The bi lateral agreement w ou ld recognize that some t im e w ou ld be required before the project
intervent ion results in measurable outcomes fo r proje ct beneficiaries. Th e agreement wou ld also
recognize that events outside o f the con t ro l o f the nat ional Government or the prov inc ia l
Government could in f luence the pace o f execut ion o f the program. Accord ing ly tw o measuresw o u l d be incorporated in he b ilatera l agreement.
First, there would be a phased approach regarding expected results. In the f i r s t tw o years o f
execut ion o f he program, the resul ts expected wo ul d be those that deal with processes, an d in he
final three years o f he program, the annual progra mm ing agreements wo ul d also inclu de results
pertaining to outcomes. Process indicators wou ld consist o f the var ious in st i tut iona l and
methodological inputs for execut ion. Thus, for rural educat ion, the resul ts would include the
def in i t ion o f the rura l school c lus ters and the ident i f i cat ion and in i t ia l execut ion o f school
construction activit ies where such activit ies are deemed to b e necessary f or m eet ing the progra m
goals, Results indicators in he next phase wou ld deal with outcome measures such as enrollme nt
rates and intern al efficiency indicators.
Second, throughout the f i r s t and second phase o f the program, there w ou ld be a n inst i tut ional
mechanism to evaluate compl iance with the Annua l Programm ing Agreements. This mechanism
wo uld include an annual meeting between prov incia l and Fede ral Governmen t representat ives inthe months o f October and November t o a l low for suf f ic ient t ime to prepare for the beginning o f
the school year in M a r c h o f he subsequent year.
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I f a provinc e i s n o t in compliance with the annual progra mmin g Agreements, the province w ou ld
submit a repor t to the Federal Government d etai l ing the corrective measures be ing taken by the
provin ce. These corrective measures cou ld include, where appropriate, the assignment o f urther
resources f or techn ical assistance fr om the Federal Government. The acceptance o f the report
based o n the correct ive act ion wou ld include a cont inuation o f program act iv i t ies in the
subsequent year. I f compl iance proves to be a problem for a second year in succession, theFederal Governme nt wo uld b e empowered under the terms o f he agreement fo r a par t ial or total
suspension o f pro ject act iv i t ies in the non-performing province. In this case, the Federal
Government wo ul d be empowe red to reassign resources to other provinces with a satisfactory
track reco rd o f me etin g the agreed goals.
Levels o f Program Execution
Three management and execut ion levels have been ident i f ied: Le ve l 1 or central level; Level 2 or
prov inc ia l eve l and Leve l 3 or lo cal ev el (rural school clusters).
Leve l 1- or cent ra l level - wou ld consist o f DGUFI, D N G C y F D , D N I E C E , DPC (Directorate o f
Compensatory Programs) an d the DI Directorate o f nfrastructure). DGUFIwo uld be responsible
for general administrat ive execut ion o f he ent i re project, channeling the requirements f ro m the
other Directorates..
Leve l 2 -or prov incia l leve l wou ld consist o f a speci f ic department designated by the prov inc ia l
educat ion author i ty (Provincial Sub-secretary for Admin istrat ion and Finance o r equivalent). The
requirements for contract ing and payments would be ini t iated by the corresponding technical
areas o f rura l educat ion (Provincial EGB Directo rate or equivalent), and evaluation a nd statistics
(Statistics Directo rate o r equivalent).
Leve l 3- or local level wou ld consist o f ura l school c lus ters .
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The overal l conclusion of the Financial Management Team was that, under the management o fth e MECyT, the Project would be able to maintain financial management arrangements
compatible with Ba nk requirements. Agreement was reached on an action pl an o n the standards
to b e m e t by th e financial statements and the time frame fo r their submission to the Ba nk after
being cert i f ied by the auditors, and on the Financia l Management Rep ort (FMR) format. Specific
recommendations were made regarding the organizational arrangements, the strengthe ning o f
hum an resources and the operational manual, and includ ed in the action plan. The conclusions of
the Financial Management (FM) assessment are that: (i) he financial management riskassessment sh ows a moderate to high risk for the pro ject imple mentatio n based o n he weaknesses
at the provincial level, (ii) M design i s ta i lored to support the mainstreaming o f project
management to the DGUFI to strengthen their financial management capacity; (iii)he DGUFI
wo uld be responsible for the preparation o f proje ct consolidated finan cial management statements
and supervision o f prov incia l level, and (iv) the provinces wou ld require addit ional investments t o
improve their financial management institutional capacity. The provinces’ capacity has to be
complemented by an additional accountant to h elp manage project fin ancial affairs, and the use o f
infor matio n systems capable o f operating using the intranet accessible vi a the We b.
The financial management risk assessment concluded that the inherent and control r isks for the
projec t are moderate.
Country Issues
The Country Financial Accountabi l i ty Assessment (CFA A) prepared by the Ban k in 2003 -2004
states that at the central level, the Government o f Argentina has a fully integrated budget,accounting, treasury, and publi c debt financi al management system. These systems contr ol the
funds received by the central Government f ro m any source and provide suff ic ient informat ion to
determine i f he funds were ut iliz ed as planned.
This CFAA covered the Federal Government central system and did no t cover the assessment o f
public financial systems at the sub-national level (Provinces). A CFAA update o f the Federa l
system in Argentina i s planned for F Y200 6 whi le the eva luation o f Prov incial systems i s planned
fo r FY2007 .
A FM issue raised in the Coun try Assistance Strategy (CAS) document (January 2004) was the
chronic problem related to the t imely submission o f audi t reports t o the Bank. However, since
2003, there has been some improvem ent o n country audit repor t compliance. The audit
compl iance issue i s be ing addressed by the Bank at the portfo l io level and through an Insti tut ional
Development Fund (IDF) grant to strengthen the inst i tut ional capacity o f he Auditor ia Generalde la Nacidn (Borrower’s Aud itor General Office, AGN). The 2006-2008 C AS for Argentina that
i s currently under preparation develops a fiduc iary actio n pla n that seeks to i mp rov e the
timeliness and effectiveness o f he external audit func tion in the country.
The International Monetary Fund issued an experimental Re port o n the Observance o f Standards
and Codes (ROSC) for A rgentina in April 1999, wh ic h includes a section on Fiscal Transparency.
This report noted that based on the descr ipt ion o f practices provide d by the authorities and
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summarized in the report, Arg entin a has achieved a high degree o f fiscal transparency. This i s a
ref lect ion o f the s ignif icant progress that has been made since the implem entat ion o f andmark
legis lat ion o n f inancial administration and control in 1992.
Financial Management Assessment
As requi red by OP/BP 10.02, a Senior Fina ncia l Manageme nt Specialist carr ied out a financ ial
mana geme nt assessment during the Project’s pre-appraisal phase. A Senior Finance Off ic er fr om
Bank Headquarters also provided guidance regarding the Project’s financing and disbursement
arrangements.
The Financial Management Assessment (FMA) indicates that an adequate fina ncia l management
system to keep records and report on the use o f funds o f the project i s in place. However some
further steps nee d to be take n as described in he A c t i on P lan be low .
The FMA took into account a prel iminary assessment o f provinces selected by th e DGUFI and
MECyT.This assessment involved ensur ing that project design al lows fo r an appropr iate lev el o f
transparency, faci l i tatin g oversight and contr ol while also supporting sm ooth implementation.
The assessment included discussions with the f inancial team, a review o f he f inancia l systems tobe used fo r project accounting, f inancial administrat ion, contro l l ing and report ing and the inte rnal
controls and administration procedures to be implemented to con trol and mo ni tor the project ’s
exec uting an d au diting arrangements.
Implementing Entity
The DGUFIo f he bor rower’ s M in i s t r y o f Educat ion (MECyT) wou ld be the coord inat ing unit f o r
the proposed project. The DGUFI would be responsible for project accounting, report ing
inclu ding preparation o f FMRs, internal control, disbursements and the external audit. The
DGUFIFM staff ing wou ld be speci f ied in he Operat ional Manual .
Financial Management Arrangements
At the Central and the Provincial Government
0 The MECyT financial management responsibilities. The MECyT wou ld be the Bank ’s
direct counterpart responsible for financial management issues. I t s responsibi l i t ies
includ e the preparation o f consolidated financ ial statements; disbursement arrangements
with the Government a nd Ba nk financ ial authorit ies; external audit arrangements; and
supervis ion o f provin cial le vel f inancia l management and disbursement arrangements;
amo ng others.
0 Institutional Arrangements. Imp lementa t ion o f he p ro jec t in genera l woul d be car r ied
ou t using the same financial manag ement and au dit arrangements that are in place at the
MECyT. Addi t ional arrangements regarding Project Component A w o u l d b eimplemented at bot h the system and the inst i tut ional level to strengthen the DGUFI and
i t s relationship with the provincia l level .
At th e central Government level, th e MECyT wo uld b e respons ib le for car ry ing out f inanc ia l
management, procurement and disbursement activit ies at the central level, as well as for
mon i tor ing and supervis ing the f iduciary arrangements at the provin cial level . Th e DGUFI ha s
the exper ience and capaci ty f i o m other Wo r l d Bank-f inanced projects: (Lo an 397 1-AR PO06057
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amoun t US $11 5.0 mi l l ion , approval December 21, 1995; clos ing date April 30, 2004 - Loan3794-AR PO05992 amount US$190.0 mil l ion, approval September 15, 1994; closing date June
30, 2001) and Inter-American Development Bank ( IDB)-f inanced projects to manage large
projects, implement their fiduciary procedures, monitor implementation and provide technical
assistance t o bene ficiaries.
At th e pro vin cia l Government level, institutions wo uld use their planning, financial management
systems, and internal control arrangements (e.g. M&E, fiduciary management and inte rnal
arrangements) t o achieve the bil ater al technical agreements with rural schools clusters. An
assessment o f the Provincial Tr ibunales de Cuenta (PTCs) wo uld no t be carr ied as part o f the
Project. However, the Government o f Argentina i s responsible f or p eriodic assessments o f hese
insti tut ions.
A number o f options were considered during project preparation to address the inherent
complex i t ies o f f iduc iary oversight fo r this decentralized operation inc luding : (i)he financing
scheme fo r the project, in wh ich a substantia l port ion o f Project expenditures w ou ld be paid at the
national Government level through the DGUFI; (ii)he strengthening o f the DGUFI to ensurecontinuity and adequate coordination with the provinces; and (iii)he strengthening o f the
fiduciary capacity o f some o f he weakest provinces that wo ul d participate in the Project.
The minimum f inancial management requirements provinces wou ld have to comp ly with, in order
to be elig ible t o receive resources from the project are summarized as fo llows :
1. Contract an accountant or business administration specialist with experience in project
management finance d by internationa l cooperation.
2. Consultant contract arrangements. Based on the existing lega l framework, contracts for pro ject
coordination units personnel have to b e at least for one year.3. Project coordination units have to be built-in to the organizational structure o f he provincial
Ministry of Education or the Educational Counci l . No parallel structure to the central
administrat ion s acceptable.
0
0
Project coordination unit budget i s ntegrated into the pro vince budget,The ir fina ncial management and control systems respond to the needs o f the provinc e
authorities. The accounting, the budget, the fl ow o f funds and the internal control wou ld
have to be defined according to pr ovinc e financial management arrangements,
Processes and procedures are developed an d moni tor ed by the provi ncia l authorities, and
Project coordination unit hum an resources arrangements are an integra l part o f he central
administration.
4. The project coordination unit in the Pro vince receive d technical assistance and init ial basic
t ra in ing f r om the DGUFI.
0
0
Disbursement Arrangements
0 N ew EZigibiZity Policy. The pro ject incorporates the Bank’s n ew p o l icy o n e l ig ib i l i ty fo r Ban k
financing.’ T o impleme nt the policy, the Country Finan cing Parameters for Argentina were
approved by the LCR Regiona l V ice President o n M a y 11,2005.
The Ban k would f inance up to 90 percent o f he project total expenditures effect ively made by the
project. Lo an proceeds w ou ld be disbursed based o n expenditure in curre d at a rate o f up to 90
5 See OP 6.00, Bank Financing.
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percent o f he variable advances made by the Borro wer to provinces to cover the cost o f goods,
works, services and flat recurrent costs requ ired to im plem ent the bilater al agreement. T he terms
and conditions fo r the advance o f funds to provinces w ou ld be agreed in each bilateral technical
agreement. Th e Ban k woul d monitor the DGUFI’s assessment o f institution al performance of
provinces interested in participating in the project.
0 Execution accounts. As i t i s customary in Argentina, the Government wo ul d open a Special
Account (SA), as a revolving bank account to finance project expenditures for all components
and wo ul d request replenishment for the Bank’s share o f the financing. Requests for
reimbursement wo uld be submitted to the Ban k on the basis o f Statements o f Expenditure
(SOEs).
Resources wo ul d be transferred from the Wo rld Ban k to a special account opened at the Banco de
la Nac ion A rgen t ina in dollars. An operative bank account in pesos wo ul d be also open at “Banco
de la Naci6n” in he name o f he DGUFWECyT to manage resources transferred fr om the S A.
0 Disbursement Mechanisms and Documentation. The Bank would disburse to the
Gov ernm ent based o n transaction-based disbursement requests sent by th e DGUFI. Advances to
provinces for a 60 day p er iod o f el ig ib le expenditures will be a llowe d based on the presentationof an acceptable action plan presentedby the provinces to the DGUFI.Prior to approving further
advances, provinces will have to present full documentation p rov ing that the advances were use d
for eligible expenditures. The following describes the disbursement approach for the main
activities:
0 Flow of Funds and Information. A number o f enti ties w ould be invo lved in project
impleme ntation, oversight, and financial management. For Com ponent B, al l expenditures wo uld
be made by the MEC yT , through the DGUFI , for activities carried out at the central level, and
for preparing the inform ation required by the Financial Moni tor ing Reports.
The DGUFIprovides administrative and financial management support to the project and wo ul d
be responsible fo r al l payments made directly or upon request by the provinces to providers,contractors and consultants for Components A or B, for contracts and expenditures over
US$lOO,OOO. In addition, f or Component A, advances for a 60 day per iod o f eligibl e expenditures
could be made to the provincial level to be executed by the province. The var ious provincial
Governments could be responsible for payments to contractors and consultants contracted by
them under US$ 100,000. The DGUFIwou ld have the ma in funct ion in this case o f consol idating
the financ ial management info rmat ion and supervising the use o f projec t resources according to
the projec t objectives and the fina ncial planning.
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2. Prov incia l lev el pays providers or contractors di rect ly and wou ld in fo rm the DGUFI that
3. The FMRs and disbursement documentation wo uld be prepared by th e DGUFI, based o n
the p aym ent process has been completed on a mo nth ly basis.
consol idated nformat ion prov ided by the prov inc ia l level and the M E C yT tse l f.
T h e B a n k w o u l d m o n i to r th e f l o w o f funds, especially to ensure that undisbursed funds don o t s i t in he p rov inc ia l l eve l fo r a l on g peri od o f ime.
In-kind Contributions. In-kind contributions w ou ld be an integral par t o f project execution,
j o i n t l y with cash resources pro vide d by the central and provinc ial governments. Ho wever, in-kind
contr ibut ions will not be inc luded in the local counterpart hnding. The concept o f in-kind
con t ri bu t ion wou ld be used to p romote i nvo l vement o f p rov inces and m a l school s in project
execut ion with materials, work, and other non-cash investments that otherwise would be not
accounted for.
A table for conversion o f n-kindcontribut ions into monetary measurements wou ld b e developed
by th e DGUFI and distr ibuted to the provinces. The respo nsibi l i ty for the preparat ion o f the
reports, in clud ing in-kindcontr ibut ions and reporting, w ou ld b e under the provinc e coordinator .
The DGUFI f ina ncia l team wou ld register these contr ibutions using the project chart o f accounts
unde r “cuentas de orden”. These in-kindcontributions w ou ld no t need to be audi ted.
Information Systems. The project wo uld no t require a new in form ation system. There i s a basic
system in place implemented by th e DGUFI for the IDB- f inan ced PROM SE Projec t, to m oni tor
subproject im ple men tatio n and resource transfer. This system wo ul d also be used to produce the
requisite financial statements for this project. Eve n though, the system i s n o t linked with th e
natio nal Government’s integrated financial management system, i t provides a comprehensive too l
for pro ject moni tor ing and can wo rk in para l le l with the central Governmen t budget informa tion
system.
Written Procedures. Project f inancial procedures would be documented in an OperationalManual , w hic h wo uld define the ro les and respons ib i l it ies o f a l l enti ties involved in Project
implementat ion. The Operat ional Ma nu al woul d include, among other f inancial procedures: (i)
accounting pol ic ies and procedures, including basis o f accounting and chart o f accounts; (ii)he
rep ortin g requirements fi-om the pro vin cia l level; (iii)ormats o f the consol idated F inanc ia l
Mo ni to r ing Reports fo r the program; (iv) internal controls inclu ding cr i ter ia and procedures for
processing payments and advances; (v) records management; (vi) audit arrangements; and (vii)
format and content o f he f inancial statements
Financial Reporting. The DGUFI would prepare semiannual F inanc ia l Moni tor ing Repor ts
(FMRs) in accordance with Ba nk procedures, wh ich specif ies accounting and report formats f or
a l l Bank- f inanced pro jec ts. F inanc ia l Mon i tor in g Repor ts (FMRs) wo ul d comprise at least:
A f inancial section stating for the pe rio d and cum ula tivel y (project l i fe ) cash receipts by sourcesand applications by ma in expenditures c lassi f icat ion as we l l as beginn ing a nd ending cash
balances o f he project an d a statement o f accumulated investments by project component with a
comparison between a ctual and plann ed expenditures.
An outp ut mo nit ori ng section that: (a) sets for th physic al progress in pro ject implementation, and
(b) explains variances between the actual and previo usly forecast imple men tatio n target.
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A procurem ent section describing the status o f procurement under the project, as o f he en d of he
period covered by the report.
The FMR’ s formats w oul d be agreed with the DGUFI and included in the Operational Manual,
The Operational Manu al prepared by the DGUFIand acceptable to the Ba nk s p a rt o f the Act ion
Plan. The DGUFI would be responsible for the project financial management, includingaccounting, an d tim ely submission o f the Financial Management Reports, annual audits and
disbursements and would record all transactions in i t s own system. The physical progress
indicators and the timing o f he FMRs wou ld be consulted with the B an k to ensure the usefulness
o f the FMRs in the overall project supervision. The preparation o f these reports w oul d re ly
heavi ly o n the in format ion prov ided by the provincial level . The DGUFI finan cial management
team agreed o n the format o f reporting and the preparation o f consolidated reports for project
management an d distribution to the various stakeholders, inc ludi ng national contro l entities and
the Bank.
Fina ncial statements wo ul d be prepared on the basis o f accrual accounting and shall be in l i ne
with the Ba nk requirements.
Audit. The financial statements of the project would be audited annually by the Comptrol lerGeneral (AGN). The project financial statements audits would be conducted following national
audit standards compatible with the International Organization o f Supreme Audit Inst i tut ions
(INT OSA I). Th e project wou ld have external audit arrangements under the responsibi l ity o f
AGN, for the central Government and al l provinces, w hic h wo uld jo in the project. This
arrangement requires that external auditors would carry out a traditional independent audit,
j o i n t l y with the support o f the ME Cy T inte rna l aud it unit, and the auditors would provide
technical assistance during each fiscal year. There are several objectives o f this addit ional
requirement:
Ensure external auditors wo uld have close follow -up on interna l control, accounting and
budgeting processes and procedures, based on the understanding this would not a f fect
their independence and objectivity .
Exte rnal auditors wo ul d have the opportunity to assist or gu ide the project to correct anydeviations fr om the procedures to a void any possible problems during the fisca l year.
Ensure a better understanding o f project execution that wo uld contr ibute t o carrying out
the external audit.
There i s no need to wa i t until the end o f he f iscal year to per form an ex-post audi t review where
the possible outcomes wo ul d have only a retroactive e ffect o n project execution.
0
0
0
Detai led Financial Managemen t Arrangements
In order to contribute to a better understanding o f proje ct fin ancia l management arrangements, a
matr ix was developed to descr ibe the di f ferent activi t ies and responsibil i t ies o f the di f ferent
entities involved in projec t execution.
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Procurement would be carr ied out in accordance with provisions stipulated in the LegalAgreement a nd the Wo rl d Bank 's "Guidelines: Procurement under IBRD Loans and IDA Credits"
dated Ma y 2004 for the supply o f goods and ci vi l works; and "Guidelines: Selection and
Employment o f Consultants by Wo rld Ban k Borrowers" dated M a y 2004 for technical assistance
and other consultant assignments. The various items under different expenditure categories are
described and summ arized below . Fo r each contract whic h wo ul d be financed by the Loan, theapplicable procurement methods or consultant selection methods, the need f or pre-qualification,
whe n necessary, estimated costs, p rio r revie w requirements, and tim e frame are agreed between
the Borrower and the Ba nk in the Procurement Plan that i s described in the Operational Manual,
The Procurement Plan would be updated at least annually or as required to reflect the actual
project's imple men tatio n needs and improvements in institutiona l capacity. The Bank' s Standard
BiddingDoc ume nts (SBD) and Standard Request for Proposals wou ld gove rn the procurement o f
Bank-financed Inte rnat iona l Com peti tive Bidding (ICB) goods and c iv i l works and consultant
services respectively. The same rules wou ld apply to ICB procurement and to large contractswith consultant f i r m s as identifie d in the procurement plan o f he part icipating Provinces. For the
Nat iona l Compet i t ive Bidding (NCB) and Shopping or Three Quotations proc uremen t o f goods
and ci vi l works, the DGUFIwo uld use National S BD agreed with or satisfactory to the Bank. All
SBDs wo ul d b e used for each procurement method, as we ll as mo de l contracts for works, goods
and consultants procured, and should be included in he Operational Manu al (OM).
Procurement o f Works: Civil works procured under this project wou ld include infrastructure fo r
rural and vocational schools. This m a y imply repair ing and expanding exist ing buildings or
through the replacement o f exist ing buildingswhere rehabil i tation i s not feasible and only min or
maintenance o f school buildings. The B an k evaluated one Province and the rest o f the
part icipating Provinces wo uld be evaluated by th e DGUFI, fo l low ing the Bank's standard format.
The in i t ia l risk grading o f the part icipating Provinces wo uld b e subject to review (upgrade ordowngrade) depending upon their performance as monitored by the DGUFI. Al l c i v i l wo rks
contracts estimated to cost over US$5 O mi l l ion equiva lent wo uld be procured using InternationalCompeti t ive Bidding (ICB) procedures and the Bank's SBD . Civil work s contracts estimated to
cost less than US$5.0 mi l l i on equ iva lent m ay be procured using Nat iona l Compet i t ive Bidding
(NCB) procedures. Wo rks estimated to cost less than US$350,000 equivalent, m ay be procured
on the basis o f at least three quotations fr om qu alified contractors. The procure ment under N C Band three quotations wo ul d be done usingnational SB D acceptable to the Bank. Fo r small -scale
rehabil i tation or maintenance o f existing schools, the partic ipatin g schools wou ld subcontract
directly to contractors when the ind ividual contracts do n ot exceed US$20,000. Wh en no suchcontractors are available in the participating school area, the schools w ou ld select a contractor
from outside the loca l area o n the basis o f acceptable administra tive procedures under national
regulations. This type o f nvestment w ould be speci f ied in the procurem ent plans contained in he
sub-project plans presented by the participating Province s duringProject 's implementation.
Procurement of Goods: Goods to be procured wou ld include: equipment prov ision especial ly for
drinking water and fo r the supply o f electricity f or ru ra l schools; textbooks, didactic materials,
printouts, furniture, videotapes, computer an d audi ovis ual equipment. All goods estimated to cost
over US$500,000 may be p rocu red using International Competi t ive Bidding (ICB) procedures
and the Bank's SBD. Goods estimated to cost less than US$500,000 may be procured in
accordance with the Nation al Competi t ive Bidding (NCB). Books, l ibraries and didactic materials
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ma y be procured under Community Part icipation in Procurement (para. 3.17 o f he Guidelines).
Th is process requires that representatives o f al l levels o f the Education Co mmu nity including
M E C y T ’ s will participate in the evaluation o f samples o f books, l ibra ries and didactic materials
prov ided by the Education industry. The terms o f eference o f he evaluation committee should
be satisfactory to the Bank. The industry will be asked t o submit samples to be assessed by th e
Educ ation Co mm unit y based on their technical, pedagogic, curricular, and graphic factors,com petit ive aspects, and on price reasonabil i ty. The technical competition i s the resu lt o f an
open request o f expression o f nterest. The outcome o f his technical assessment will be included
in the catalogue o f books and didactic materials which will be rev iewed by the Ban k before the
MECyT proceeds with the direct purchase. Det ails arrangements and criteri a fo r evalu ation are
included in the technical section o f he Operational Manual. Contracts for goods that cannot be
grouped into larger bidding packages and estimated to cost less than US$lOO,OOO per contract
may b e p rocu red using Shopping (National/International). The procurement wo uld b e done using
Na tion al S B D and a mod el request for quotations agreed on or satisfactory to the Ba nk.
Advertisement: All procurement notices shall be advertised in the National Contracting Off ice
(Oficina Nacional de Contrataciones, ONC) web page or in at least one loca l newspaper o f
national c i rculat ion. The I C B procurement notices and contract award information shall be
advertised in th e UN Development Business online (UNDB online) an d in th e DevelopmentGateway’s dgMarket . The O N C shal l also be used to publish nform ation o n awarded contracts
in accordance with provis ions o f paragraphs 2.60 o f he Procurement Guidelines and as mandated
by local legislat ion.
Procurement o f non-consulting services: Non-consulting services under this pro ject would
include contracts fo r logis tics services to support training.
Procurement o f Consultants’ Services:
(i) irms: it s expected that the project wo ul d finance technica l assistance for the implemen tation
of the components (a) Impro ving Qual i ty and Coverage o f Ru ral Education and (b) Enhancing
Stewardship Capacity o f he National Level . At the national level, Con sulting Services through
f i r m s wo ul d include technical assistance for the development and applicat ion o f pedagogical and
institutional models, for the design o f teaching materials and didactic models for student
throughput, and fo r o rganizing school clusters and training. At a prov incial level , this w o u l d
include technical assistance fo r organizing teacher trai ning and provi ding support in the f ie ld. All
contracts fo r f i r m s wou ld be procured using Qua lity- and Cost-Based Selection (QCBS), except
for small contracts for assignments o f standard or outin g nature and estimated to cost less than
US$lOO,OOO equivalent, which would be procured using other methods such as Least-Cost
Selection (LCS) or Consultants’ Qualifications (CQ). Single-source selection (SSS) procedure
m ay be used only in exceptional cases, with pri or agreement o f the Bank, in accordance with
provis ions o f paragraph 3.10 o f he Consultant Guidelines, for assignments wh en on ly one firm i s
qualif ied or has experience o f exceptional worth, and i t has been confirmed by a request o f
expressions o f interest. Consultants’ services to organize worksho ps wo ul d be selected using
LCS. Universi t ies for tra ining purposes wo uld be selected in accordance with provis ions o fparagraph 1.11(b) an d (c).
Short l i s t s o f consultants for services estimated to cost less than US$300,000 equivalen t per
contract may be composed entirely o f national consultants in accordance with the provis ions o f
paragraph 2.7 o f he Consultant Guidelines.
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(ii)ndividual Consultants:Mo st o f he consult ing services to be contracted wo uld b e related to
supervision, tr ain ing and technical assistance. Th e consulting services men tion ed above w ou ld be
provided by indi vid ual consultants selected by comparison o f qual i f icat ions o f at least three
candidates and hire d in accordance with the provisions o f Section V o f he Consultant Guidelines.
Individual consultants for services with an expected duration o f six months or m ore would be
selected as a resu lt o f a request o f expressions o f interest advertised in a national newspaperand/or ONC, and contracts wou ld be signed for the expected duration o f he assignment, subject
to annual revie ws for performance. Contracts with individuals ma y only be terminated for poor
per formance or fo r non-comple tion o f he work with Bank’s pr ior agreement. The Ba nk wo uld
no t agree to the replacement o f individu al consultants terminated f or other than the
aforementioned reasons.
Advertisement: The ONC or a national newspaper shall also be used to advertise a request o f
expression o f nterest for consult ing f i rms or individuals, and to publish nformat ion on awarded
contracts in accordance with provisions o f paragraphs 2.28 o f he Consultants Guidel ines and as
mandated by local legislation. Contracts expected to cost more than US$200,000 shall be
advertised in UNDB onl ine and in dgMarket.
Operating Costs: The loan wou ld f inance operating costs that w oul d be procured using B a n kSho ppin g procedures, if he conditions o f Clause 3.5 o f he Procurement Guidelines are met. The
operating costs inc lude cost o f maintenance o f computer, offic e and aud iovisual equipment,
transportation fares, travel expenses and per diem, either related to t rain ing or supervisionactivities and other operational costs o f he Program.
Others: Didactic materials and book fairs (FERIAS). An innovative procurement procedure
k now n as the D idactic Support and School Books F air (Feria de Apoyos Did kct icos y Libros
Escolares, FERIA), wo ul d be conducted under special procurement arrangements in the project.
The strategy o f he FERIA seeks to resolv e a supply-side procureme nt issue fo r these educational
inputs vi a a participa tory scheme in the educational chain o f the MECyT. All books, materials
and other education items in the catalogue are then shown during a FERIA Wee k to a l l schoo l
com muni ty teams, in vite d ex-profeso by th e MECyT. The MECyT m ay again use the services o f
a specialized logistics firm to provide support during the FERIA events and later to d istribute toschools the books del ivered by all publishers or editorial homes that were awarded purchase
orders/contracts at time o f FERIA. With the f inancing provided by th e MECyT to schools,
according t o specific school/student quotas, school teams can decide to buy the books andmaterials that their schools want and need, w itho ut any interventio n at this stage f ro m the MECyT
central areas. Schools place direc t purchase orders with each editorial home representative
attending th e FERIA. W he n these purchase orders and contracts are finalized, t he ed ito rial homes
are made responsible fo r ma kin g arrangements to deliver a ll materials and books, either direct ly
to each school or to the designated warehouse, depending on the optio n selected by th e MECyT
for distr ibution. Detai ls on he FERIA arrangements and criteria fo r eva luation are inclu ded in the
technical section of the Operational Manu al.
B. Assessment of the agency’s capacity to implement procurement
Procurement activities would be carried out at the national level by the Ministry o f Education,
Science and Technology (MECyT) through i t s Directorate General fo r the Unit o f In ternationa l
Finance (DGUFI). The DGUFIwou ld have techn ica l support f ro m the area o f Rura l Educat ionunder the Directorate General o f Curr ic ulum Management and Teacher Training (DNGCyFD).
The DGUFI s staffed with a General Coo rdinator and various technical experts.
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Procurement Responsibil ity. There wo uld be three levels o f impleme nting agencies. At thecentral level, the Directorate General for the Unit o f International Finance (DGUFI) o f the
Ministry o f Education Science and Technology (MECyT ) wo uld hire an addit ional consultant to
complete the procurem ent unit fo r the project. The unit would procure larger packages o f goods
and consultants services. As an option, the MECyT cou ld contract UNOPS to fac i l i ta te
procurement processes; the fee related to the services would be paid with loca l funds. TheUNOPS would carry out procurement activi t ies using the methods established in the Loan
Agreement (LA) and in the OM and would be subject to the same prior and ex-post review
procedures. Th e Provinces participating in the subprojects would also carry out procurement
activities using the methods established in the LA. The third level, schools, w ou ld contract small
contractors t o carry out the maintenance o f the buildings and procure small goods using
administrative procedures defined in the OM. The DGUFI would be responsible for overal l
procurement activity under the Project, including compliance with procedures and timetables
agreed with the Bank.
Fo r f inancing c iv i l works and goods related to them, each jur isdict ion must submit technical
documentation of each project to the Infrastructure Department o f the M E C y T for i t s approval.
Once the projec t i s approved, funds wo uld be transferred. The responsibi l i ty o f he area and t ime
frame f or the review o f the documents wou ld be indicated in th e OM, to avoid delays in theprocess.
An assessment o f he capacity o f he Implem enting Agency to implement procurement actions for
the project was carr ied out by the Directorate General for the Unit o f In ternat iona l F inance
(DGUFI) with the resources o f a PHRD grant during project preparation between April a nd M a y
2005 and by the B a n k during the pre-appraisal mission. The assessment also reviewed the
organizational structure o f the Province o f Misiones for implementing the pro ject and the
interaction between the project’s staff responsible f or pro cureme nt and the relevant central unit
for administ ration and finance.
The capacity assessment o f he DGUFI and the unit in Posadas (Province o f Misione s) as w el l as
the action plan for improving their procurement capacity includes providing office space, hiringspecialized staff, and main tainin g an inform ation system.
The k ey issues and r isks concerning procurement for implementat ion o f the project have been
identi f ied and include: (i)bsolete regulatory framework for the procurement o f goods and work sand lack o f egal framework for the selection o f consult ing services, (ii)nadequate office space
and equipment, and (iii)ack o f an in format ion system for moni tor ing pro ject and procurement
progress.
The corrective measures that have been agreed to m itigat e each o f he above-mentioned r isks are:
(i)he Lo an Agreement w ou ld include Special Provisions and the DGUFIwo uld adopt a Project
OM satisfactory to the Bank before implementation begins, (ii) dequate office space and
equipment would b e prov ided by the MECyT ;(iii)n Excel-based informat ion system to mon itor
project and procurement progress. The Project OM ncludes the agreed NCB documents.
The overal l project risk fo r procurement i s AVERAGE.
A r i s k leve l woul d b e established for each participatin g Prov ince based on a self-assessment by
the Province and a rev iew by qual i f ied staff at the DGUFI. The Ban k woul d con f i rm the resu lt ing
estimate o f risk in each case. Bas ed o n this approach, the DGUFI wo uld prepare a capacity
assessment for each part icipa ting Province b efore a ny disbursement i s made under Subprojects,
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The DGUFI wil l use the Bank’s toolkit for determining the procurement implem entin g capacity
and assessing ri sk . The DGUFIwou ld be using the same questionnaire a nd method ology used by
the Ban k in classi fying the risk o f he part icipating Provinces.
C. Procurement Plan
The Borrowe r, at appraisal, prepared an overall Procurement Plan fo r the tasks to be ca rried out
during the Project’s implementation. This mode l procurement pla n i s included in th e OM.Procedures fo r i nstit ution al procurement plann ing are specified in th e OM.
The pl an has been agreed between the Borrower and the Project Team. I t i s also to be made
available in the project’s database and in the Bank’s external website. The Procurement Plan
would be updated in agreement with the Project Team. The Ban k wo uld review the project
procurem ent pl an annually, includ ing the pla n for selecting consultants, and con fi rm t s approval
of the procurement risk classification o f each participating Provinces. Befo re presenting the
consolidated pla n to the Bank, the DGUFIwo uld re view the plan o f each part icipating Province.
The qual it y o f he p lan and i t s tim ely presentation to the DGUFIand the Bank w ould he lp both to
ide ntif y weaknesses in the units. An action plan wo uld be prepared to correct and fol low-up on
these issues.
In the case of ICB for works and goods and consultant contracts expected to cost more than
US$300,000 a General Procurement Not ice (GNP) i s required. The Ban k wo uld arrange for i t s
publ ication in UNDB online and in dgMarket.
D. Frequency o f Procurement Supervision
The Bank would carry out ex-post reviews through an annual supervision mission on
procurement. The DGUFI and the Bank, in clud ing procurement and financ ial management staff,
wo uld m eet biannual ly to discuss the classi f icat ion o f Provinces, to re view th eir procurement and
action plans and to carry out the ex-post review. The Bank ’s project supervision wo uld revie w
procurement reports and wo uld carry out procurement reviews in he partic ipating Provinces.
Independent Procurement Reviews; For investments under the school activities, the DGUFI
wo uld provide the Bank, n o later than six months after the end o f each year, the reports o f he
independent procurement review s audited by proc urem ent experts, acceptable to the Bank .
E. Details o f the Procurement Arrangements Involving International Competition
A descriptio n o f the detailed procurement arrangement in vo lv in g international arrangements,
fol low ing the format of the tw o tables described below i s par t o f he Procurement P lan hat wouldbe made available in he project’s database and in he Bank’s external website.
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(a) List o f contract packages to be procured foll owi ng ICB and direct contracting:
8 9
Expected Comments
Bid-Opening
Date
Review
by Bank
(Prior /Post)
(b) ICB contracts estimated to cost above US$5.0 mil l ion for works and US$300,000 for goods
and non-consulting services per contract and all direct contracting would be subject to prior
rev iew by the Bank.
Expected Comments
Proposals
Submission
Date
2. Consulting Services
(a) L i s t o f con sult ing assignments with short- list o f nternational f i rms.
Method
5 1 6 1 7
(b) Consultancy services estimated to cost above US$200,000 per contract and single source
selection o f consultants ( f i rms) woul d be sub ject to pr io r rev iew by the Bank.
(c) Short l i s t s composed entirely o f national consultants: Short l i s t s o f consultants fo r services
estimated to cost less than US$300,000 equivalent per contract ma y be composed entirely o f
national consultants in accordance with the provisions o f paragraph 2.7 o f the Consultant
Guidelines.
F. Special Procurement Conditions
The fo l low ing Special Procurement Condit ions wo uld b e included in the Lo an Agreement (LA)
and shall apply to procurement under the project:
General0 Forei gn and loca l contractors, service providers, consultants and suppliers s hall not be
requ ired to: (a) register or (b) establish residence in Argentina or in a Province or (c)enter into association with other nation al or internation al bidders as a conditio n for
submittingbids or proposals.
0
International Arbi tra t ion shal l be included as a condit ion o f confl ict resolut ionmechanism in contracts with foreign contractors, service providers, consultants and
suppliers.
Invi tat ions to bid, biddingdocuments, minute s o f bid opening, requests f or expressions o finterest, and modif ications o f award o f al l goods, works and services, includin g
consultants’ shall be publishe d in the web page o f he ONC in a manne r acceptable t o the
Bank.
Witness prices shall no t be used as a parameter fo r a bid evaluation or contract award.
0
0
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A two-envelope system for procurement would not be used for procurement o f goods,services (other than consultant services) and works.
Af te r the pub l ic open ing o f bids, inform ation relating to the examination, clarification
and evaluation of bids, and recommendations concerning awards shall no t be disclosed tobidders or other persons not off icia lly concerned with th e biddingprocess until the award
i s publ ished. Bidders shall not be al lowed to review or make copies o f others bidders’
bids.
For contracts for goods, services, other than consulting services, and works, “the most
convenient” bid shall be the one that has been determined to be substantially responsive
and has been determined to be the lowest evaluated bid, provided that the bidder i s
determ ined to be q ualifie d to perfo rm the contract satisfactori ly.
The lowest evaluated bidder shal l not be required to reduce i t s bid as a condit ion o f
contract award.
Pr ice Adjustment for Civil Works Contracts should fol low the Pr ice Adjustment
Metho dology agreed between the Government o f Argentina and the Bank .
The NCB procedures wo uld be m odif ied t o make them ide ntical to the ICB procedures,except fo r the fo llo wi ng features: (a) advertisement m ay be l i mi te d to th e national press
or o ff ic ial gazette, or the O N C website, (b) the currency o f he country o f he Borrower
ma y be used for the purposes o f bidding and payment, (c) the bidding period ( from the
date of publ ication o f he invi tat ion to bid or the date that the documents are available,
whichever i s later to the date o f bid opening) may be reduced to 30 days, (d) the
INCOTERM clause DDP m a y b e used for the procurement o f goods and (e) the priceadjustment mechanism applicable to NC Bs, as stipulated in the above-mentioned Price
Adjustment Methodology.
0
0
Consultant services
0 Consultants shal l not be required bid or performance securities.
Procurement records . Deta iled procurement records, re flect ing the Project’s supply o f goods,civ i l works construction / rehabil i tation and consultant services, inc lud ing records o f time taken
to complete key steps in he process and procurement activ ities related to supervision, review, and
audits, w ou ld be maintained by the DGUFI. These records wou ld be maintaine d for at least tw o
years after the Project’s closi ng date. The records for ci v i l works an d goods wo ul d include public
notices, bidding documents and addenda, bid opening information, bid evaluatio n reports, for mal
appeals by bidders an d outcomes, signed contracts with relat ed addenda and amendments, records
on claims and dispute resolutions, and any other useful inform ation . The records fo r consultant
services wo ul d include pub lic notices fo r expression o f interest, request for proposals and
addenda, technical and financial reports, formal appeals by consultants and outcomes, signed
contracts, addenda and amendments, records on claims and dispute resolution and any other
useful information. The participa ting Provinces wo uld retain all invoices, pr ice comparisons,
bids received, bid evaluation reports, and al l o f the documentation required under the l aw andensure tha t i t s readil y available. The filing, reco rd keeping, auditing, reporting, post-review, andmonitor ing o f he smal ler procurement activi t ies are crucial f or the successful appl ication o f the
funds fo r ensuring economy, eff icie ncy , and transparency.
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The economic and f inancial analysis o f he “Rural Educat ion Improvement Project - PROMER’
(hereafter, the project) i s carried out in tw o parts:
The Annex beg ins by presenting the findings f ro m a recent ly conducted rural household survey
(RHS) cond ucted for a study on ru ra l pover ty in Argentina. The survey o f dispersed rural areasin Argent ina i s smal l in scale (with 414 households sampled in the prov inces o f Chaco, Santa Fe,
Santiago del Estero, and Mendoza) in compar ison to the widely used Permanent Household
Survey (Encuesta Permanente de Hogares, EPH) that covers u rban areas in Argentina. Howe ver,
wage earnings regressions reported in he study prov ide impor tant insights regarding the potent ial
benefi ts o f this project. Fo l lowin g the presentat ion o f data fro m the rura l household survey, a
cost-benefit analysis o f Component A o f he project (rural education) i s presented that indicates
an in ternal ra te o f etu rn o f 14.3 percent under conservative assumptions. The second part o f this
Ann ex ident i f ies the f iscal impact o f he investment, w hic h appears to be mi no r consider ing the
magni tude o f he educat ional expendi ture in Argentina.
Part I : Economic Benefits for Rural Education in Argentina
Rura l pover ty i s extensive in Argentina, especial ly in the Nor thwest and Nor theast regions o f he
country, The Rural Poverty Study shows that Extreme Poverty i s higher in rural areas (39
percent) than in urba n areas (28 percent). Analysis o f available e mpi rical data indicates highpotent ial benef i ts from improving educat ional attainment in rural areas. At average values o f
other var iables, the Ru ral Poverty Study reports that having completed pr ima ry educat ion raises
the p robab il i ty o f emp loyment in high-return jobs to 18 percent. R ais ing one’s educat ion to the
secondary leve l shows that those with a secondary education are more than twice as l ik el y to be
employed in the high-return non agr icul tural employment as workers with only a pr imary school
education.
The R ura l Poverty Study fur ther reports that more educated indiv iduals in rura l Argentina earnhigher incomes than their less-educated counterparts. Interestingly, the findings indicate that
workers with completed p r imary educat ion in the lo w end o f he income dis t r ibut ion receive far
lowe r returns t o educat ion than their peers in the mid dle and high end. Work ers in t he l o w end
(25th quint i le) receive a 10 percent return o n comple t ing pr imary educat ion, as compared to
median workers w ho earn a 27 percent return. Th e var iat ion in the par t ial correlat ion between
education an d earnings indicates the very high heterogenei ty o f pr ima ry education qual i ty in rura l
areas. T h i s prob lem o f heterogeneity has a qua nti tat ive and a qual i tat ive dimension.
Quantitat ively, the coverage o f ear ly chi ldhood educat ion i s v e r y l o w in rural areas, as i s th e
coverage o f secondary education. In the absence o f eaching and lea rning methods and associated
materials tai lored to the special circumstances o f ru ra l schools (such as the presence o f multi-
grade classrooms), the qua lity o f the education experience varies wid ely across schools. The
findings fkom the earnings funct io n regression are repo rted belo w as Table 1.
The ex t remely high returns reported in the table fo r levels other than pr imary educat ion indicate
the presence o f elat ively few indiv idu als in he sample with these levels o f education, rather than
tremendously high rates o f etu m to educat ion for these levels. O f he 5 14 indiv idua ls whose data
was used for the regression analysis reported below, 35.7 percent ha d ess than p r ima ry educat ion
completed; 52.7 percent ha d prim ary education completed; 7.6 percen t ha d secondary education
6 Verner, Dorte, June 2005. Rur al Poverty and Labor Markets in Argentina, Working Paper, World Bank.
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completed, and 3.9 percent had highe r education completed. With signi f icant out-migrat ion o f
more educated indiv iduals fkom ru ral areas, the smal l sample o f higher educated workers cannot
be taken as representative, and the coefficients for levels beyo nd pri ma ry ed ucatio n completed
should not be considered as representative o f the earnings benefits that would accrue from an
expans ion o f access to secondary or higher educat ion in dispersed rura l areas of Argentina.
75"
Return
% P>JtJ
0.80 0.00
-34.56 0.00
Table 1:Determinants o f Labor Income in Dispersed Rural Areas o f Argentina,
OLS and Quantile Regressions,2003
90"
Return
% P>Jt l
1.11 0.00
-17.06 0.00
Dependent var iable: L og abor income
Return
% P>JtJ
0.30 0.00
-53.51 0.00
7.79 0.00
Return Return
% P>JtJ % P>Jtl
0.30 0.00 1.21 0.00
-43.33 0.00 -35.21 0.00
9.75 0.00 27.12 0.00
O LS 1 25" 1 50th
A g eFemale
EducationPrima ry education complete
Secondary education complete
Univ ersi ty education complete
Lab or status
Has a permanent o b
Has a fo rmal ob
Self-employed
Wage worker
Commerce and Services
Agr icul ture and Livestock
Other sectorPubl ic Administ rat ion
Santiago d el Estero
Chaco
Mendoza
Sector
Province
Constant
I I
0.00
0.000.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.000.00
15.60 0.00
88.89 0.0052.50 0.00
0.00 0.00
54.19 0.00
16.53 0.OC
24.23 0.OC
-7.96 0.OC
0.00 0.0C
-9.06 0.OC
-13.24 0.OC
-9.43 0.oc-12.89 0.0C
144.49 0.00353.13 0.00
0.00 0.00
121.00 0.00
149.93 0.00
-23.43 0.00
-16.14 0.00
72.12 0.00135.84 0.00
0.00 0.00
42.19 0.00
59.84 0.00
-26.36 0.00
-3.34 0.00
58.57 0.00192.41 0.00
0.00 0.00
138.69 0.00
66.36 0.00
-35.60 0.00
-5.45 0.00
0.00 0.00
-72.11 0.00
-71.75 0.00
-13.93 0.00-81.33 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
-43.62 0.00 -22.59 0.00
-35.92 0.00 -27.67 0.00
2.74 0.00 -15.72 0.00-36.87 0.00 -31.55 0.00
25.99
55.8992.13
0.00
34.72
40.07
4.50
12.30
0.00
-21.96
-21.26
-15.21-27.82
-32.23 0.00
-36.43 0.00
-33.77 0.00
62705.68 0.00
0.103
-46.74 0.00
-55.34 0.00
-48.93 0.00
436673.57 0.00
0.136.13 0.085 0.097djusted R2 (OLS) and Pseudo R2
uantile Regression)
province. T he percentage return s calculate d as (exp (c oefficient estimate) - 1) * 100. N um ber o f observations: 5 14(weighted: 209,984) Source: R ura l Household Survey, 2003; This table replicates Tab le 7.8 in Rura l Pover t y and
Labor Markets in Argentina, by Dorte Verner, Wo rk ing Paper, Wo r l d Bank, June, 2005
Results o f Part 11: Cost-benefit Analysis
This section presents a cost-be nefit an alysis o f Component A (rural education) o f he project.
Project Interventions and Direct and Indirect Beneficiaries. The project seeks to increase
educational attainment among the you th populat ion res id ing in rural areas, particularly in those
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regions with the lowest education indicators. The project includes the follo win g interventions: (i)
Expans ion o f Pre-School and Low er Secondary Coverage in Rural Areas; (i)mprovingFunctioning Condit ions o f Rural Schools; (iii) i rected Programs for Improving Student
throughput in Ru ral P r imary Education; (iv) Rura l School cluster.
D i r ec t Ta r ge t P opu l a t i on
Assumptions for Economic Analysis o f Equity and Education Project. The fo l lowingparameters are con sidered relevant in estimating the economic benefits o f he proposed project:
(i)he length o f the project horizon, (ii)he t ime o f impact o f the pro ject o n the student
population, (iii)he size o f the target population, (iv) the existing patterns o f repetition and
dropout rates o f he rur al population, (v) the comple tion rate for EG 3,
Rura l populat ion at school age
(age: 5 to 14). Al l rur al areas.68,540
Given the medium-to-long-term effect o f he changes, the estimates presen ted in erms o f educed
repetition and drop out rates and increased the EG B3 complet ion rates, wh ic h assume a project
horiz on o f onl y five years, are conservative. Therefore, this analysis assumes a longer horizon.
The analysis o f the Project uses the following assumptions to measure the direct and indirect
benefits (Table 2).
Pre-school(5 year old chi ldren)
EGB3
Internal E ficiency (I)
Reduced Repeti t io n Rates EGB 1 and 2
Reduced Repeti t io n Rates EGB 3
Reduced Dropou t Rates EGB 1 and 2
Table 2: Beneficiaries and Targets
89% Assume 95% enrol lment after f iv e years.
66% Assume 85% enrol lment after f ive years.
Assume 30% reduct ion in epeti t io n rates after f ive
Assume 30% reduct ion in epeti t io n rates after f ive
Assume 30% reduct ion in epeti t io n rates after f ive
10.1% years
5*6% years
O% years
Reduced Dropo ut Rates EGB 3Assume 30% reduct ion in repet i t io n rates after f iv e
25.9%
Table 3: Unit Costs and Cost o f Intervention
Total Cost o f he Project (Component A)*
Unit Cost of a student (Year 2003)
Estimate average incre mental earning o f owe rsecondary ed ucation graduates o ver non-graduates
(EPH, 2003)
US$244 .6 m i l l i o n
US$413/year
US$468/year
Additionally , the fol lo wi ng parameters were assumed:
(i) Discount ra te o f 10 percent;
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Project ions of enrol led students are based on annual growth rate estimations o f heenr ollm ent statistics during 200 1-2003; and
Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). The CBA i s a powe rful tool avai lable to pol icymakers that are
deciding between alternative project structures, or the“with
and wi thout” scenar io o f projectanalysis. Th e cr i te r ia used to evaluate the economic eff ic iency o f he project includ ed Ne t Present
Va lue (NPV) and the Eco nomic (or internal) Rate o f Return (IRR). The abi l i ty o f the CBA to
convert outcomes into a comm on unit o f value, ty pica lly expressed in dollars, provides a useful
summary o f overa l l benef its . In the case o f education projects, costs are easily iden tif ie d but
ben efits are harder to measure.
Summary o f Costs and Benefits. The p rel iminary estimations considered two sources o f di rect
benefits. The f i rst one i s associated with the savings to the educat ion system fr om the re duct ion o f
repetit ion rates in rural areas. (The latest survey conducted by the Ministry o f Educa t ion shows
that the repet i t ion rate for EGB 1 and 2 i s 9.8 percent for the rura l populat ion whi le 6.1 percent
fo r the whole cou ntry). The second bene fit considers the reduction in dropout rates that im pl ies an
amount o f mone tary resources saved to the system. Drop out rates among the r ura l populat ion are
considerably higher than for the urban populat ion: 9.95 percent for EGB 1 and 2, and 26 percentfor EGB 3 in he rural areas, compared with 2.2 percent and 8 percent respectively fo r the wh ole
country.
The unit costs per student in EGB are assumed to be US $ 413 per year. (This f igure actual ly
corresponds to the urba n population, but data f or the r ur al sector i s no t available). I t s important
to project the project ’s benefi ts der ived fro m the reduct ion in rep etit i on and drop out rates.’ The
other source o f di rect benefits i s the increased future earnings o f EG B 3 graduates as opposed to
non-graduates in rural areas. A 5 percent marginal re turn per addi t ional year o f school ing i s
assumed, a conse rvative figure, in light o f he earnings regression reported in Table 1 above (OLScoeff ic ient for Pr imary Edu cat ion completed was 7.8 percent).
Th e direct invest men t costs are distr ibuted ov er a five-year pe rio d and i t i s assumed that theGovernmen t wou ld have an addi t ional recurrent cost to cont inue the benefi ts achieved after the
f inal year o f he project. This recurrent cost was assumed to be s imilar t o the rec urrent cost during
the project (around US$20 mi l lion lyear ) . F ro m this perspective, the tw o cr i t ical indicators that are
evaluated inc lude the net present value (NPV) o f a l l benef i t and investment f lows and the in ternal
r at e o f e t u rn (IRR).
The direct costs are the U S 3 5 0 mi ll io n investment costs associated with a l l components o f he
project (the real costs to be incurred during the f i ve years o f the pro jec t are US$250 mil l ion) .
Give n the expected disbursement prof i le, the present value o f the future investment i s US$235mi l l ion w hen d iscounted with a ten percent discount rate.
In the absence o f the project, a total o f 670,000 students would repeat a course and 400,000
wou ld dropout of school during the 10 year per io d (assuming that the re pet i t ion rate and thedropout rate among the rural populat ion observed in 2003 remain constant during the t ime
7 High repet i t ion and dropout rates imply that enrollment rates in hig her grades are progres sively reduced,
wh ic h ndicates a def iciency in he ef f ic iency o f expenditures. See “Enfoques sobre l a Ef iciencia d el Gasto
en Educaci6n BBsica en l a Argent ina” Wo rki ng Paper N.6/03, W or ld Ba nk Reg iona l O f f ice fo r A rgent ina ,
Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. June 2003.
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hor iz on o f he project). F inal ly, considering a marginal return to schooling equal to 7 percent, i t s
estimated that in the absence o f he project, annual income wou ld be US$46 8 lower.
The expected benefi ts o f successful p roject implementat ion wo uld be:
The num ber o f epet it ions wo uld be reduced to an est imated 370,000 students. I t s thisreduct ion o f an es timated 300,000 repet it ions that consti tutes one o f he ma in benefi ts o f
the project. This reduct ion in the number o f epeti tions wo uld a l low for the reallocat ion
o f US$124 m i l li on ;
Pote ntial dropouts reduced by the projec t wo ul d be about 40,000 students;
An increment o f 20 percent o f he student popu lat ion graduating fro m EGB3 with
incremental year ly earnings o f US$468.
The rat io o f benefi ts to costs, consider ing the full cost o f he pro jec t, w ould y ie ld near ly
1.8 dol lars o f benefits for each dol lar invested. The project wou ld y ie ld a NPV, after
investments , o f US$195.5 mi l l i on over ten years and produce an in ternal ra te o f re turn
(IRR) o f 14.3 percent.
30,727,273
44,462,810
47,032,307
41,254,013
24,464,300
11,289.479
10,263,1629,330,148
8,48 1,952
0
0
0
34,073,246
65,215,248
70,783,264
69,582,97566,784,423
64,03 1,167
-30,727,273
-44,462,810
-47,032,307
-7,180,767
40,750,948
59,493,785
59,319,81357,454,275
55,549,2 15
Table 4: Summary o f Cost-Benefit Analysis
Year Investments Total Benefits Net Benefits
1
2
3
4
5
6
78
9
10 7,710,866 60,061,705 52,350,840
Tota l 235,016,309 430,532,028 195,515,720
IRR 14.3
Source: ow n calculations based o n data f rom MCEyT
Results o f Part 111: Fiscal Impact
This third sections analyzes the f iscal impact o f he project, based on the calculat ion o f
counterpart costs an d the im pl i c i t addi t ional f iscal costs to sustain project investments an d
outcomes (for example highe r enrollments generated by the project; maintenance o f
infrastructure, equipment and materials; other recurrent costs).
The f i r s t step in he analysis fo r the sustainabi li ty o f he project was to establ ish the base level
expendi tures pr io r to the implementat ion o f he pro jec t.
The total costs o f he project, in clu din g investments and recurrent costs, represents less than 9
percent o f he Educat ion Ministry Expenditures, w hic h indicates that the implem entat io n o f he
project i s viable.
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This Annex presents the details regarding the Safeguard Policies triggered by the Project and the
criteria and instruments to im plemen t them, includ ing: (i)nvironmental (OP/BP 4.01) and (ii)Indigenou s Peoples OP 4.10.
Environmental
The project has been classified as Category B. Al though i t would not support the massive
construction o f ne w schools, i t would f inance smal l c iv i l works activit ies for the repair and
rehabi l i tat ion o f existing schools. Given that i t i s not clear what specific infrastructureinterventions would be supported, an Environm ental Management Framew ork (EMF) has been
prepared, which ncludes:
a.
b.
Existing mechanisms for school infrastructure programs financed by the MECyT.
Participating bodies, including the N ational Ministry o f Education, the P rovincial
Coordinating Unit (UCP) and the Loc al Executing Unit (U.E.L.), and the responsibilitiesand funct ions o f he different bodies.Operational Guidel ines for M in or and Maj or Works, approved by the M EC y T Regula ti on
N o . 1120/02.Basic services provision and emergency w or k execution.
Basic Crite ria and regulations f or school architecture.Environmenta l Impact and Risk Template. Procedures and verifica tion l i s t .
c.
d.
e.
f.
The above environmental guidelines would be used by contractors fo r al l rehabi l i tat ion works
under the project
Social
Desk Review and Informed Consultations
The social assessment was carried out by loca l teams in two parts: (a) A nationwide qualitative
assessment t i t led “Study o f Social Demands” was carr ied out f rom Novembe r 2004 to February
2005 to p rov ide inputs int o the project design on aspects related to rural, technical and vocationa l
schools in project areas. A purposef ul sample selected by the Ministry o f Educa t ion i ncluded
provinces located in th e six ma jor regions o f he country: Mendoza, R i o Negro, Salta, Misiones,
Catamarca and Ro sar ioE ant a Fe. Teachers, parents, students, social comm unicators, education
specialists, secondary school authorities, potent ial employers and representatives o f he indus trial
sector shared their perceptions, vie ws an d expectations o f he current educationa l system, and the
constraints and challenges o f the labo r market for high school graduates. The methods used to
collect info rma tion were focus groups and interviews. T o com plement the above assessment, a
desk review o f secondary sources carried out between April and June 2005 analyzed institutio naland poli tica l issues o f supply and demand o f education in Argentina.
(b) A desk review o f exist ing informat ion on the status o f education among indigenous peopleswas carried out in June 2005. I t was based o n the 2 001 Census, documents an d studies by the
Ministry o f Education, Science and Techno logy MECyT (1997-2005), the Center fo r Lega l and
Social Studies (CELS), the Internation al Federat ion o f Hu ma n Rights (CAREF ), and other
sources. The desk review was complemented by consultations with Government off ic ia ls and
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stakeholders at the central level ( INDEC; the National Inst itute of Indigenous Af fairs- IN AI; the
MECyT) and at the provincial level. The assessment concentrated on the Northeastern (NEA),
and Northwestern (NOA) regions, wh ich include some o f he poorest provinces in the country,
with the high est student dropout, re peti tion and over-age rates, a nd therefore, the highest demand
o f support. C oincidently , these provinces are home to the largest majorit y o f ndigenous students.
(i)ssues in RuralE ducat i on
The poor qua l i ty o f education in disadvantaged rur al areas in Argentina affects over 12 percent o f
the tota l school-age popu lation. Some reasons cited are: (a) Th e appli cati on o f univ ers al urba n
education norm s and curricu lum to rura l settings; and (b) Poor p lann ing and lack o f cont inu ity o f
teachers and school adm inistrators in rura l areas w hich results in disruptive turnover, ro tatio n and
insta bil i ty o f educators and administrators. T he ru ral indigenous peoples are even m ore affected
for being rural, poor and indigenous, with subsequent problems o f identity, dis crim inatio n and
exclusion. The need for intercultura l education surfaced over the years wh ile seeking solutions to
rural education problems. For example, the "Program for the Strengthening o f Rur al Education
and Teacher Training " in ndigenous regions, i s a result o f hat effort.
I l l i teracy. There i s a high cor re la tion o f i l l ite racy with poverty, living in a rural location and
bei ng indigenous. The i l l i terac y rate for the country i s 2.6 percent. However, the NEA an d NOA
regions have an average i l l i teracy rate o f 6.77 and 4.33 percent respectively. T he situation i s
worse in indigenous communit ies o f the provinces o f Formosa, Salta and Chaco. F or example,
although Form osa has an average i l l i terac y rate o f 5.98 percent, some communities, such as
Ram 6n List a have a rate o f 22.7 percent. There i s a similar situation in Salta wh ere the average
rate i s 4.66 percent, but Santa Vic tori a has a rate o f 21.17 percent and Rivadav ia has a rate o f
16.67 percent.
Access to pr imary and secondary schools. Acco rding t o the 20 01 Census, in the three age
ranges (6 to 11, 12 to 14, and 15 to 17 years), the provinces o f Misiones, Chaco, Santiago del
Estero, Tucuman, Corrientes and Formosa register the lowest percentage o f egistration in school:
94 to 97 percent; 9 2 to 86 percent; and 72 t o 59 percent f or the three respective ranges, comparedto 99 percent for Patagonia and Cordoba.
Access to Pre-school.
Accord ing to the M EC yT data , a lmost one mi l l io n ch i ld ren in the country are not in pre-school.The pre-school level consists o f wo cycles: one with childr en fi-om 45 days to 2 years ol d and
another one with chi ldren between 3 t o 5 years old.
There i s correspondence between school success during th e f i r s t years o f pr ima ry education(EGB) and enrollment in pre-school. At pre- sch ool level, valuable intellectual, physical,
emotional and social learning takes place. In addition, it i s important to consider that the pre-
school leve l for 5 year olds i s compulsory as established by the Federa l La w o f Educ ation (1993)
and therefore, i t s also a right.
Also, there are inequalities betwee n the diffe rent regions o f the country that are hidden in these
numbers. T he center a nd southern regions hav e the highest enrollmen t rates, wh ile the NOA and
NEA have the most worry ing coverage indicators.
Inequal i ty s deepened in poo r rura l areas and worse in ndigenous comm unities.
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There have been some diverse experiences in offering educational services by the Government
an d by non-Gov ernment al organizations where i t has been diff icul t to achieve coverage. Onesuch experience i s the “Madres cuidadoras” (Mother Caregivers) in the Quebrada a nd Puna areas
o f the provinces o f Salta and Jujuy, where the ma in objective i s that mothers help children to
learn how to read and write. The important thing about these experiences i s that they include
direct part icipation o f he comm unit ies involved, the fami l ies and the respect for cul tural patternsand the values. Tha t i s why regulations and research about i t s development are needed. Besides,
trained h uma n resources and phys ical resources in context are needed.
Primary school attendance. Abo ut 3.7 percent o f the total pop ulatio n has never attended a
school. The NOA and NEA province s exhibit the lowest indicators o f school attendance. About
8.65 percent o f Chaco, 7.1 percent o f Formosa, 6.7 percent o f Corrientes, 6.3 percent o f Misiones,
6.1 percent o f Estero and 5.5 percent o f Salta has never attended a s chool
Population with maximum educational attainment of sixth grade. Fo r 27.98 percent o f
Argentineans, the m ax im um educational attainment i s only sixth grade, as compared with Buenos
Aires (18 percent). However, in the poor er provinces, such as Formosa, Corrientes, Chaco,
NeuquCn, Salta and Jujuy, between 20 and 26 percent o f populat ion have on ly a ma xim um
educational attainment o f sixth grade.
(ii)ndigenous Peoples in Argentina
The exact number o f ndigenous peoples in Argentina i s no t known. The 2001 Census included a
question o n ‘self-identification,’ wh ic h created resistance fr om the indigen ous organizations. A
general estimate i s between 1.5 and 2.7 percent o f he total populatio n (see Tab le 1). There are 20
different groups and the most numerous are the Colla, Diaguita, Mapuche, Wichi and Toba.
According to the Census, there are 281,959 homes with at least one memb er self- identified as
indigenous. One third o f those homes are located in the Province o f Buenos Aires. A
complementary Househo ld Survey mod ule tracing the 2001 households inhabite d by one or more
indigenous person i s expected to be available in ate 2005.
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Table 1: Indigenous Pop ulation in Argen tina, by ethnic group and estimate source
Provinces Nat ional IndigenousIndigenous AffairsCensus Service
1968 1974Jujuy, Salta, 1,012 35,340Catamarca;Slums o f Bs.As
and Cordoba
Neuquen, R io 27,214 21,637Negro, Chubut,L a Pampa,
Guil lennoMagrassi1986
180,000
60,000
20,000
36,000
25,000
E NDE P A I NCUP O1987 2003*
138,000 170,000
60,000 90,000
60,000 80,000
50,000 60,000
21,000 22,400
Wichi
Toba
ChaneMocovi Santa Fe, 2,876 8,945
Bs.As.
Salta, Formosa, 10,022 21,884Chaco
Chaco, Salta, 17,062 32,639
Chaco
Di ag ui a Tucuman, d d d d
Chiringuano-
Formosa, StaFe, Slums
Bs.As.Rosario
Salta, Ju juy 14,506 24,680
;ource: ME Cy T. Social Education Plan. “Compensatory Policy and Intercultural Bil ing ua l
Education”. 1998“Compliance Report o f he Argentine Government with L O Agreement 169,2003.
According to the 2001 Census, 58.4 percent o f ndigenous peoples live in urbanized areas, such asth e Pampeana Reg ion (Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Cordoba, Entre Rios and L a Pampa) and GranBuenos Aires. The other 41.6 percent live mostly in ru ra l areas, distributed among the N O A
reg ion (15.1), P atagonia (13.5), NEA (7.3) and Cuyo (5.7). Nevertheless, as can be seen in Table2, the largest number o f ndigenous communities i s found in the NOA (451) and the NEA (275)
regions respectively.
Mapping of Indigenou s Peoples and Unsa tisfied Basic Needs
The largest number of households with unsatisfied basic needs (UBN) corresponds to th e NEA
and the N O A , including Formosa (28 percent); Salta (27.5 percent); Chaco (27.5 percent);Santiago de l Estero (26.2 percent); Jujuy (26/1 percent); y Corrientes (24 percent), compared tothe Buenos Aires Provinc e (1 3 percent) or Cordoba (1 1 percent). The provinces with the highest
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indigenous population also have the highest UBN, such as Formosa, Salta and Chaco, where
some o f he departments may reach up to 79.3 percent o f UBN.
Province
Buenos Aires
Chubut
MendozaJu juy
Accord ing to the National Registrat ion o f Indigenous Communit ies (RENACI), about 867
indigenous com munities are legally constituted at the national and pro vinc ial levels, and ma ny
others in the process o f acquiring egal personality.
Number o f Province Number o f
Communities Communities
14 Chaco 89
24 Formosa 103
13 NeuquCn 5 1
162 L a Pampa 2
Table 2: Indigenous Communities registered in RENACI per province
R i o N e g r o 13 Santiago del 13
Santa F eSalta
Tierra del Fuego
Indigenous Languages
Estero
18 San Juan 228 1 Tucuman 8
1 Misiones 83
TOTAL 867
There are thirt een indigenous languages: Quechua-Aymara, Quichua-Santiagueiio, M apu zun gun
(Mapuche), M byC Guar ani, W ichi, Pilaga, Qo m (Toba), Guarani-Yopara, MOCOV~,hanC,
Chorote and Chulupi. None o f hese languages has an offici al grammar or dictionary . Language
coverage ma y go b eyon d race, as i s the case o f Corrientes, where Gua rani i s spoken by non-
indigenous people. In addition, some indigenous groups are bil ingual and in process o f
recuperating thei r indigenous language, such as the case o f he Huarpes (Milcayac-Spanish) and
Diaguitas (Kakan-Spanish),
The hom ogeniza tion o f the popu lation through the “castellanizaci6n” (Spanish enforced and
indigenous languages shunned) has been the norm in the education system. That, together with
the gradual loss o f ancestral territories, has contributed to the loss o f dentity.
There are ten live languages: Map uzun gun (Mapuche), Mb yi-G uar ani, Wichi , Pilaga, Qo m
(Toba), Guarani-Yopara, Moc ov i, ChanC, Cho rote and Chulupi. Neither language has an off ic i a l
grammar and dictionary. Language coverage ma y go beyo nd race, as i s the case o f Corrientes y
Santiago del Estero, where G uara ni y el quichua santiaguefio i s spoken by non-indigenous. On the
other hand, some indigenous groups are bilingual and in process o f recuperat ion o f the i r
indigenous language, such i s the case o f he Huarpes (Milcayac-Spanish) and Diaguitas (Kakan-Spanish). Quechua and Ay ma ra language are no t spoken by indigenous communities but i t s s t i l l
spoken in some areas o f he Province o f Jujuy.
Legal Framework
The National Consti tut ion as wel l as legislat ion at the provincial level protects the right o f
indigenous peoples to education.
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The Na tio nal Constitution, Art 75, paragraph 17 states: “To recognize the ethnic and
cultu ral pre-existence o f Argentinean indigenous peoples. Guarantee respect for their
identi ty and their right to an inte rcultural bil ing ual education.. .”In tegra ted La w of the Abor ig ines o f he Province o f Formosa No . 426/84, fo l lowed by
Na ti on al La w 23.302/85 that grants indigenous comm unities statutory rights to
part icipate in socio-economic and cult ural processes. The same la w decrees that t he firstthree years o f education should be in mother tongue, and the years thereafter should be
b i l ingua l .
In 1992, Nat iona l L a w No . 24.071 ra t if ied IL O Agreement 169 on “Indigenous Peoples
and Tr ib a l Groups in ndependent Countries.”
Federal Edu cation L a w 24.195/93 recognizes “...the right o f ndigenous communit ies to
preserve cultural traits, the right to learning and teaching in their language, with th e
part icipation o f the elders o f each community in this process. Chapter VII, Art 34
establishes: “ .. the Nationa l Government wou ld promote programs to rescue the cultural
heri tage and strengthen indigenous languages an d cultures. ..”In 1996, the National Registry fo r Indigenous Commu nities (RENACI) was created under
the Ministry o f Social Development.
Resolut ion 107/99 o f he CFC yE created the t i t le o f “ Intercul tural Bi l i ngu al Teacher” forEGB1, EGB2, EG B3 and ‘Pol imodal’ .
The presentation before the Racial Disc r imination Comm ittee (CERD), Jul y 2004, reads:
“Indigenous peoples receive mi ni ma l education assistance and the Governm ent has no t
been able to implement an educational policy which takes into account the culturaliden tity and educational and l inguistic characteristics o f ndigenous peoples at the Federal
level . I t has also failed t o imp leme nt the urgent necessary ref orms t o the contents o f the
Edu cat ion Plans addressed to a ll the society at large”.
Arge ntina has also ratifi ed the UN Declara t ion o f he Rights o f he Indigenous Peoples,
Resolut ion 1994/45, and the OA S Declaration o f he Rights o f Indigenous Peoples, A ct
1333, Art E,wh ic h states: “(1) Indigenous Peoples w ou ld have the right to: (a) defineand apply their ow n programs, institutions an d educational facil i t ies; (b) prepare and
apply their own plans, programs, curricula and learnin g materials; (c) trai n and accredit
their teachers and administrators. (2) When indigenous peoples so desire, education
programs shou ld be carried out in the indigenous languages. Tr aini ng f or ma stering o f heindigenous language and of fi ci al languages. (3) Th e States wo ul d guarantee that theeducational systems fo r indigenous are the same in quality, effic iency and access to those
offered to the main stream population . (4) The States shall include in their education
systems, contents that refl ect the plu ri-cult ural nature o f their societies. And, (5) The
States w ou ld pr ovide the financial assistance to set fort h those provisio ns
The National Intercultural Bilingual Education Program (PNEIB)
The National Intercul tural Bi l ing ual Education Program (PNEIB) was launched in 2003 and i s
just starting to be implemented. The PNEIB i s located at the MECyT, under the National
Directorate o f Compensatory Programs.
The experimental phase o f PNEIB in i t iated in 1997, when the MECyT launched “Project 4”
within the framework o f compensatory pol ic y o f he Social Education Plan, “ to respond to the
needs of schools with indigenous students”. Some o f he init ia l actions included:
e
e
The identi f icat ion o f 800 schools that registered indig eno us students;
Salient initiatives were ident ified and a net wo rk was formed;
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Gui del ine s and pedagogical strategies were applied in five schools in f i ve prov inces with
fiv e dif feren t language groups;
Support was provided for the production o f teaching materia ls: b i l in gual sets with ten
titles in Toba and Wi ch i anguages;
PNEIB tra ini ng f or education staff, teachers and auxiliaries;
Inter natio nal Integration agreement o f PNEIB to PROEIB-Andes;Leg al framework for the generation o f EIB norms. Resolution 107/99 regulates ED3 and
teacher training.
In 2000, this progra m was renamed the “Project for the Improvement o f Educational Qual i ty for
Indigenou s Peoples” and expanded to more schools. In 2001, an agreement bet wee n the MECyT
and PROEIB-Andes was made off ic ia l a l lowing f or the expansion o f he EIBnet wor k to sensitize
the education comm unity to the special needs o f PNEIB.
The Nation al Intercul tural Bi l ingua l Program (PNEIB) at the M E C y T began operations in mid-
2004, with the objective to provide an Intercul tural Bi l ingual Program to al l the indigenous
students wh o ma y demand such program. The P NE IB plans include:
(a) The inclusion o f EIB Unitsin the
structure o f provincial MECyT offices;(b) The prom otion and cooperation for the making EIB norms of f ic ia l and inc lud ing i t in the
(c) The defin i t io n o f a teacher pro fi le for schools with indigenous population;
(d) The design o f basic pedagogical strategies b eyo nd the typic al Identity-Language-Culture
(e) Strengthening statistics and data on the education status o f indigenous students, an d
(0 The systematization o f national EIB experiences and learning from international
(g) The p romotion o f socio-linguistic research;
(h) The creation o f mo nito ring and evaluation mechanisms that isolate the ethnic variable t o
trace progress o f vulnerable e thnic groups;
(i) he inclusion o f ndigenous part icipation in he decision-making processes o f educationalpol icy; and
(‘j)T o contr ibute to the cul tural and inguist ic enr ichment o f ndigenous society at large.
sch ool year;
scheme present in he current curriculum ;
reinforc ing the links with data sources;
experiences in La tin America;
Issues in Intercultural and Bilingual Education
Despite i t s conceptual framework and sound legal basis, the PNEIB i s not pedagogical ly
regulated, fully developed an d operational yet, but soun d steps are bein g taken.
Education Census.The ethnic variable was incorporated in the educa tion census by the Min is t r y
of Education’s N ationa l Directorate o f Data and Evaluation o f Education Qual ity (RA-DINIECE)
in 2005, and the results are expected soon. In 2004, th e PNEIB began to col lect data on
enrollmen t o f indigenous students, and languages spoken. Apa rt fr o m that, the cr iterion toidentify indigenous people i s no t un i fo rm in the country. Consequently, data on enrollment,
retention, achievement, or over-age status o f ndig enou s students i s scarce or un reliable.
According to the 1998 Survey to D etect the Needs o f Abor iginal Populat ion and theSystematization o f EIB Experiences, there were approxim ately 2,7 11 schools serv ing indigenous
students in 2001. The current estimate i s 3,000 schools.
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Pedagogical Framew ork. Alt ho ug h valuable pedagogical experiences have been systematized in
the past fe w years, there i s no t a specific pedagogical EIB model. Fo r example, there i s no o f f i c ia l
intercul tural or bi l ingual curr iculum. Loc al programs have developed their ow n E ducation Plans
based o n heir loca l context and needs.
Indigenous Teachers. The intercultural team formed by “a regular teacher and an Auxil iaryindigenou s teacher (MEMA, ADA, non-official)” was a breakthrough in the system, which
recognize d the n eed for intercultura l exchange and teacher complementarity in the classroom.
How ever , un offi cia l indigenous educators that have been in the system as Aux il i ar y teachers f or
the past 20 years are demanding professionalization and regularization. The intercultural teacher
team i s found in some schools mostly in grades 1 through 3, but n o t in al l schools. A common
scenario encountered in schools visite d in indigenous communities showed a one-teacher multi-
grade school where the teacher has n ot receiv ed intercultural education an d i s unable to
understand and respond to socio-cultural and socio-l inguistic complexities.
Teacher Training to teach in Indigenous Schools, and to teach under the PNEIB. Al though
the Reso lut ion 107/99 o f the Federal Counci l o f Education created the t i t le o f “ Intercul tural
Bi l i ngu al Teacher” for EGB1, 2, 3 and Polimodal, such a Training Program does no t exist. T w o
efforts are note wor thy. In Form osa (1997), the f i r s t 195 MEMAs were traine d to teach pre-school
and EGBl in Indigenous Schools and were incorporated in the system. In Chaco, there are
Aborigin al A ux i l ia ry Teachers (ADAs) and the unof fic ial teachers (‘maestros id he os ’), but th e
number i s uncertain. In general, there are at least 500 aboriginalhon-aboriginal teachers
demanding professionalization and o ff i c ia l recognit ion.
There i s neither an inst itutionalized moda lity to prepare teachers to teach in rur al schools in
indigenous communities, nor a professionalization program for Auxil iary indigenous teachers
work ing in schools with indigenous student population. How ever, there i s an Indigeno us Teacher
Tra in ing Program run by the Center for Research and Aboriginal Teacher Training (CIFMA) inthe Chaco Province.
A series o f hree workshops were conducted in 2004-2005 o n “Teacher Training, Intercultu re andBi l ingua l ism in Education” by the PNEIB in coordination with the Teacher Training Unit o f he
Nat iona l Directorate o f Curr ic ulum and Teacher Training. The objective o f hese workshops was
to formulate a Proposal for Teacher Training in Intercul tural Education and Intercul tural
B i l ing ua l Education, to b e submi t ted to the Federal C ounci l o f Education for the d iscussion o f a
Federal Pol icy for Intercul tural and Bi l ing ual Education. The workshops too k place in Bari loche
(for Patagonia region, Central Argentina, Men doza an d Federal Capital), Form osa (for NEA and
Federal Capital), and San M ig u el de Tucum hn (for NOA and Federa l Capital). The results are
reflected in he recommendations o f his Annex.
Educational and reading materials in indigenous languages. With some exceptions, many
materials used in the PN EI B are translat ions o f mater ia ls used in regular schools with
mo nol ing ual Spanish-speaking students.
Grammars, dictionaries and reading materials in indigenous languages. The only exist ing
grammar i s Guarani. Other grammars in plannin g stage are Wichi , Qo m (Toba), M ap uz un gh ,
Mo co vi and Quechua.
Scholarships fo r indigenous students. In coordination with INAI, according to the MECyT, th e
Natio nal Scholarship P lan assigned 8,000 scholarships to indigenous students in 2005 in 1,286
schools (6,000 from th e MECyT, 1,300 from Social Development Plan and 700 f rom other
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sources) for E G B3 and Pol imodal. According to INAI two problems remain: (a) la ck o f data to
identi fy ethnic background o f ecipients; and (b) l ack o f racing studies to m onit or results. There
i s n o data o n scholarships fo r indigenous students f or pre-school, EGB1 and EGB2 .
Recommendationso f the Social Assessment
F o r Rural Education
1. Regional ization and diversif icat ion o f the curr iculum. The curr iculum for rur al schools
should b e adapted to the learning needs o f rural areas, based, however, o n the nationa l
curr iculum, so that indigenous students can compete at the nationa l level.
2. Acc eler ated learnin g for over-age students. Support the accelerated lear ning programs f or
over-age students in rural areas, with the help o f tinerant teachers and extra-curricular
activities. Community-based efforts are vital to support students going f ro m 6th to EGB 3
level, and through high school.
3. Teacher Training. Specialized training to teach in rural areas should be provided to
teachers. A Mod ule on In tercu ltural Educat ion i s recommended for all teachers working
in ur al areas.
4. Strengthen Parents’ Asso ciations and other community-based organizations s upporting the
schools.
F o r the National ntercultural Bilingual Education (PNEIB)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5 .
Diagnosis. Carry o ut a diagnosis o f supply and demand o f schools’
infi-astructure/conditions, and educational resources in indigenous regions (urban and
rural). The diagnosis should determine the demand for strengthening existing EIB Units
at the Central and Prov incia l level, and the creation o f ne w ones in provinces lacking an
EIB Unit. Staff ing those units with Educatio n Anthropologists, cur ricu lum designers andEIB materials design specialists wou ld be a ke y to the development o f a sustainable EIB
Program. EIB Units in Provinces should provide technical assistance to schools in
pedagogical and administrative matters.
Data collection. Ensure proper data collection in the E duca tion Census (Relevamiento
annual) i ncl udi ng the ethnic variable and language spoken at home.
Homogenize cr iter ia for the defin i t ion o f a “school with indigenous populat ion” in order
to classify them as those needing a full EIB, or classes t o strengthen the lo cal indigenous
language.
Teacher profi les . Def ine profi le s o f (a) rura l teachers capable o f teaching intercultural
students, an d (b) “rura l El l3 teachers.”
EIB Curr iculum. Develop an Intercul tural and Bi l ingual Curr iculum (based on the
Regional ized Curr ic ulum for rural schools), but l i ke ly to be adapted to respond to theneeds o f rura l indigenous schools, w hi ch enables students to cross-over fr om 6 th to 7t h
grade and to complete high school, wh i le prepar ing them ei ther for the workforce or
tertiary education. This curr iculum should include f luent reading and writing ski l ls ,
pr imar i ly in Spanish.
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6. Teacher Training Programs. Three programs are needed: (a) A professionalizationp r o g r a m fo r 500 current ‘auxi l iary’ teachers ME M A S who wish to specialize in EIB
(Post Diploma); (b) An on-the- job training program on “ Intercul tural and bi l ingualeducation ” for ru ral teachers currently teaching in rura l schools with indigenous students;
and (c) the incorporation o f a Module o n “ Intercultural and bi l ingua l education” for
regu lar teacher tr aining programs in general. Also, training o n “Intercultural and bil ing ualeducation” to academic staff in rural schools with indigenous students and to
administ rative sta ff o f hose schools.
7. Institutional Pedagogical Plans. Support the Institutional Pedagogical Plans submitted
annual ly by schools to the MECyT fo r funding.
8. Inter cultu ral Teaching-learning materials. Carr y out an in vent ory o f teachingAearningmater ia ls in schools with indigenous population. Provid e support to the development o f
grammars, dictionaries and educational materials for the teaching o f EIB in rur al schools.Support the production and reproduction o f eaching mater ials for EIB schools.
9. Sch ool Networks. Support the formation o f ‘school networks’, to share facili t ies,
materials and experiences and to im prov e monit orin g o f hose schools.
10. The concept o f “ intercultural education” in Argentina should permeate all subjects:
technical, social an d arts sciences in education. This concept should guide research with
pedagogical purposes to capture valuable traditional knowledge and cultural identity
(Bariloche, Formosa, Tucu mhn Workshops).
11. Form ulate a set o f administrative norm s to: (a) flex the school calendar to accommodate
seasonal needs in rural areas; and (b) re fo rm teacher statutes t o in clude considerations for
ru ral teachers in ndigenous schools.
12. Systematize best pedagogical practices in EIB and intercultural education in rur al areas o f
Argentina . Support best practices an d initiatives in different regions o f he country.
13. M&E programs should include variables to id ent ify coverage o f schools in indigenous
regions.
Goals and Action Plan of the National InterculturalBilingual Program (PNEIB) at the
MECyT.
Seven l ines o f action are inclu ded in he PNEIB 2005 Plan:
1. Teacher Training. PNEIB seeks to incorpora te EIB in al l Teacher Trai ning Programs fo r
pre-school, EGB1, 2, and 3 and to promote the professional ization o f al l indigenousauxil i ary teachers (MEMAs, ADAs, informal, etc.) and to promote consultations and
part icipation o f formal and informal educators presently wo rki ng with aboriginalstudents.
2. Product ion o f Teaching Mater ia ls. The introduction o f ntercul tural concepts into exist ingmaterials being used in mult i-cultu ral and multi- l ing ual contexts, as we ll as the
development o f ne w materia ls.
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Inst itutio nal Pedagogical Projects. Respond to the particu lar needs o f schools and
jurisdictions serving indigenous peoples by supporting their institutional pedagogical
plans, Also, in coordination with the jurisdictio nal level, p rovid e technical assistance to
schools for the prom otion and strengthening o f significant EIB experiences.
Scholarships fo r indigenous students in EG B3 and Pol imodal. In coordination with INAI,provide 10,000 scholarships per year to students in EGB3 and Pol imodal. L ikewise,
coordinate with the Scholarship Program for T ertiary Ed ucation (under the Secretariat o fTert iary Education Pol icy) to provide scholarship support for students wishing to
continue their studies at the univers ity.
Format ion o f a Federa l EIB Network. PNEIB seeks to support the creation o f a
permanent federal n etwo rk that facil i tates the commun ication among pro vin cial teams fo r
a co ordinated participatory d ecision-m aking process with regard to EIB pol icy. I t also
aims at participating in the PROEIB-Andes program with the purpose o f strengthening
the articulation among the provincial M inistr ies o f Education, the universi t ies and the
indigenous peoples in he country.
Systematization o f data and inform atio n on education o f ndigenous peoples, and proper
Mon i tor ing and Eva luat ion o f EIB experiences. PNEIB seeks to generate an accuratediagnosis and baseline capable o f reflectin g the education reality o f ndigenou s students,
and adequate instruments to mon itor changes in each urisdiction.
Educational research and participation in regional research projects. Also, the
incorporation in the network o f Document Centers o f PROEIB-Andes through the
Nat iona l Teachers' Library, wh ic h allows access to EIB materials produced in other
countries.
The Indigenous Peoples Plan
Gi ve n the presence of indigenous peoples in Argentina, and consistent with the Bank Po l i cy 4.10on Indigenous Peoples, the proposed project would include an Indigenous Peoples Plan (PP)wh ich w oul d support ongoing Government o f Argentina programs addressed to improve the
education conditions of rural schools attended by indigenous students. The GOA counterparts
have proposed he IPP below t o support the action plan o f PNEIB for (2005-2010).
Table 3: Indigenous Peoples Plan
ProjectComponent
A. Improv ingQuality and
Coverage o f
RuralEducation
I Activit ies to be f inanced fro m L oan Proceeds I CostUS$
Professionalizationo f Auxi l iaryAboriginal
Teachers(MEMAs an d ADAs)
(a) Workshops with technical teams in ou rcountry regions t o discuss elements o f Plan;
(b) EIB Teacher P rofessionalization Pla n
(Curriculum);(c) Produc tion and distribution o f Teaching
Manuals to support professionalization;
604,700
I I I
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(e) Tra ining workshops on EIB and participationo f school community in the formulat ion o fthe institutional pedagogical project t orespond to specific needs.
(a) Inv ento ry o f existing resourceslmaterials;
(b) Quality review and assessment o f uti l ization
(c) Reproduction o f approved materials; and(d) Development of new teachingllearning
materials(e) Production o f materials.
o f materials;
Diagnosis/mapping/censuso f s ta te o f educationamong indigenous and non-indigenous peoplesresiding in ndigenous regions in Argentina (rural
and urban) whic h indicate the f ol low ingquantitative and qualitative information, asfollows:
(a) Demographics : students: number o f school-age indigenous ch ildre n and youth, number o f
those matriculated and those with ou t access
to a school;
(b) Infrastructure: Physical con ditio n o f schoolsin ndigenous regions (as part o f the AnnualCensus under DINIECE-MECyT) ;
(c) Studies o f rates and perceptions in education:access, repetition, over-age, drop-out,
completion in pre-school, EGB1, EGB2,EGB3, number o f eachers wit h different
types o f specialization trained to teachintercultural education; number o f eachersspeaking indigenous languages and lev el o f
education. R easons fo r the above rates.Peoples’ perceptions and preferences;
(d) Language(s) o f nstruction;
(e) Pedagogical materials and too ls used:universal Spanish, intercultural, biling ual;
(9 School organization, participation: School
Council, decision-making schemes;opportunit ies for participation o f parents’,
business community, c iv il society; and
evaluation. Standardized and non-
standardized tests. (ii)Teachers’ evaluations.Strengthen existing p rovinc ial EIB teams;Instal lEIB teams in provinces where they do not
exist yet; andAnnu al workshops to train provin cial and regionalteams in our years.
(g) Mo nitor ing and Evaluation: (i)tudents’
!,507,460
1,083,000
116.200
68 8,640
5,000,000
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I n i t i a l P I D t o P I C 0211412005 02114l2005I n i t ia l ISDS to P IC 02/14/2005 02/24/2005Appraisal 09/15/2005 10/28/2005Negotiat ions 11/7/2005 11/16/2005
Planned date o f effectiveness
Planned date o f mid- term rev iew
B o a r d R V P a p p ro v al 1211512005
Planned closin g date 10/31/2011
0311 120060111 512008
K e y institutions responsible for preparation of the project:
Nat ional Ministry o f Economy and Product ion; Na t ional Ministry o f Education, Science and
Technology (MECyT) ; and Prov inc ia l Min is t r ies o f Educat ion
Bank staff and consultants who worked on the project included:
NameSuzana Campo s August0
Daniela Pena de L i m a
LuisM. Schwarz
Gaston Ma r iano B lanco
Antonio Leonard0 Blasco
Cec il ia Ma r i a Ba l chun
Mar ta E lena Molares-Halberg
Sergio Espaiia
M a r i a L u c y G i ra l doTania Gomez
Jesko Hentsch el
Febe Mackey
Claudia Nin
Rober t O’Leary
Suhas Parandeka r
Reynaldo Pastor
Mar i ana Mon t i e l
L u z Meza-Bar!x ina
Nata l ia Moncada
Mar tha P. Vargas
Gabr iela Falcon iSusana Ferrar i
Irene KitCeci l ia L ’Av ena
Feder ico Meje r
Lucas Ronco ni
Juan Sanguinetti
X imena B. Traa-Valarezo
TitleLe ad Operations Special ist
Operations Analys t
Sr. Fin. Management Special ist
Operat ions Off ic er
Fina ncia l Manageme nt Special ist
Finance A nalyst
Lead Counsel
ET/ Education Consultant
Sr. Procurement SpecialistLanguage Te am Assistant
Cou ntry Sector Leader
Program Assistant
Tea m Assistant
Sr. Finance Offic er
Sr. Edu cat ion Economist (TTL)
Sr. Counsel
Sr. Counsel
Sr. Counsel
Sr. Progra m Assistant
ETTIProgram Assistant
Language Pro gram AssistantConsultant
Consultant
Consultant
Consultant
Consultant
Consultant
Consultant
UnitL C S H D
L C S H D
LCOAA
L C S H S
LCOAA
LOAGl
LEGLA
L C S H D
LCOPRL C S H D
L C S H D
L C S H D
L C C 7 C
LOAGl
L C S H E
LEGLA
LEGLA
LEGLA
L C S H D
L C S H D
L C S H DL C S H E
L C S H E
L C S H E
L C S H E
L C S H E
L C S H E
L C S H E
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Min is te r i o de Educac ih , C ienc ia y Tecnologia. Info rme de l a Rep6blic a Argentina.Seminar io “Educaci6n de la Pob la c i h Rura l en AmCrica Lat ina: ALI M EN T AC IO N Y
E D U C A C I O N PARA TODOS”. UNESCO- FA0 Santiago de Chile, 3, 4 y 5 de Agosto
de 2004.
Ministerio de Educacion, Ciencia y Tecnologia. Programa EMER. 1992. Infor me f inal .
Evaluacion ex - post. Programa de expansi6n y mejoramiento de la educaci6n rural.
Torno I.
Ministerio de Educacidn, Ciencia y Tecnologia. S/f. Programa EMETA. Informe sobre
10s alcances nacionales.
Ministerio de Educaci6n, Ciencia y Tecnologia. DGUFI. Junio de 2005. Estudio de
Demandas Sociales. Documento Prelimina r.
Ministerio de Educacion, Ciencia y Tecnologia. DGUFI. Junio 2005. Capacidades
Institucio nales Relevadas de las urisdicciones: Doc umento Preliminar.
0
0
0
Other Reference Documents
Pro vin cia l Fa ct Sheets: Contents: Geographic characteristics, pop ula tio n characteristics,
infi-astructure conditions, social conditions (NE31 and pover ty indicators), agriculture
acti vity , man ufa ctur ing sector, service sector, labo r force, m acro eco nom ic indicators,
pol itic al situation, in stitutional context, technical education and rur al education.
Ministerio de Educacibn, Ciencia y Tecnologia. 2004. DINIECE.M ap a educativo.
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