Cambodia: Strengthening Secondary Education and Teaching of Math and Science

Education / Secondary

The Strengthening Secondary Education and Teaching of Math and Science (SSETMS) will support preparation of the Upper Secondary Education Sector Development Program (USESDP). The program is the response of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to the government''s vision of improving the quality of its human resources to sustain Cambodia''s economic development and enhance its competitiveness. This will be achieved by supporting sequenced reforms aimed at improving the effectiveness of upper secondary education (USE). The program will (i) support initiatives to improve access to, quality of, and relevance of USE; and (ii) strengthen institutional capacity for planning, management, and delivery of education. While the policy reforms will be applied nationwide, most of the project activities will be implemented in seven disadvantaged provinces.

Impact is development of high-quality human resources.

Outcome is improved effectiveness of the upper secondary education system.

Output 1: Access to upper secondary education improved. The objective of this output is to increase enrolments and reduce dropouts and repetitions at the upper secondary level.

Output 2: Quality of upper secondary education improved. The objective of this output is to improve the quality and relevance of USE to produce better qualified secondary graduates, resulting in the expansion of tertiary education and a better skilled labor force. With ASEAN economic integration, Cambodian youth need a level playing field in an increasingly demanding economic environment. However, as improving education quality is dependent on a set of interlinked activities, the project will adopt a comprehensive approach to improving the quality of USE

Output 3: Institutional capacity for planning, management, and delivery of education strengthened. The objective of this output is to improve the efficiency of USE through capacity building and institutional strengthening.

Repackaging of the PPTA Consulting Services: During the TA review mission on 23-25 February 2015, MoEYS and the mission have agreed that the composition and person-months of the PPTA consultants be based on the design of the proposed loan. The PPTA consultants will carefully study and propose all the key loan activities. Original consulting services package (i) includes only 1 national consultant as deputy team leader but no other national consultants in the technical areas are included; (ii) resettlement and ethnic minority consultants are not included while the loan project will have the civil works component; (iii) the person-months for some key positions are not enough to design a good quality project; (iv) necessary information on some activities can be provided by the ongoing Loan 2888/2889-CAM: Third Education Sector Development Program; and (v) some consultants' position titles are confusing and the tasks need to be streamlined.

The two individual consultants' contracts are now closed and the consulting firm is now on board.

A minor change was requested engagement of two new additional experts (one international and one national 4 person-months) through the firm to support start-up activities of the project loan. The consultants are now on board.