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ADB Loan to Indonesia Will Improve and Expand Access to Junior Secondary Education

Junior secondary education in Indonesia will be improved and made accessible to more children through a project for which loans totaling US$175 million were approved today by the Asian Development Bank.

Nearly half a million children in the eastern provinces of South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi will benefit from the Second Junior Secondary Education Project. This is part of a nationwide government program which other agencies such as the World Bank and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund of Japan are financing in other parts of the country.

Indonesia is approaching near-universal enrollment in primary education (grades 1 to 6) and seeks to expand the reach of junior secondary education (up to grade 9).

The project will upgrade junior secondary education through teacher training and improved textbooks and learning materials, libraries and laboratories as well as better school management and supervision. It will also extend the reach of education to children in remote areas or from low-income groups or from culturally-distinct groups, and disabled children. Girls especially are targeted beneficiaries. Over 350,000 students in junior secondary schools will benefit from improvements and a further 60,000 will be affected who would not otherwise have had access to this education.

The project will be executed by the Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education and is due for completion by 2003.

The total cost of the project is US$300 million. The Government will provide US$113.7 million and beneficiaries US$11.3 million. One ADB loan of US$160 million will come from the Bank's ordinary capital resources. It will carry an interest rate determined in accordance with the Bank's pool-based variable lending rate system for US dollar loans. Repayment is over 25 years with a 5 year grace period. The other ADB loan of US$15 million is from the Bank's concessional Asian Development Fund (ADF). This is interest-free and carries a service charge of 1 percent per annum. It is repayable over 35 years, including a 10-year grace period. Approval of this loan is subject to the condition that the loan shall be signed when sufficient financial resources are available from the Asian Development Fund, the Bank’s concessional lending window.

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