Sri Lanka: Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program
Sri Lanka has recorded a steady economic growth of 5% per annum for the past decade. In 2019, it attained an upper middle-income country status with a per capita income of $4,020. To continue achieving higher incomes and better standards of living, the government commits to becoming a knowledge-based economy by 2025. Investments in human capital and education have been prioritized for economic diversification and enhanced productivity.
Project Details
-
Project Officer
Hoque, Uzma S.
South Asia Department
Request for information -
Country/Economy
Sri Lanka -
Sector
- Education
Related Projects
Project Name | Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program | ||||
Project Number | 52203-001 | ||||
Country / Economy | Sri Lanka |
||||
Project Status | Active | ||||
Project Type / Modality of Assistance | Loan |
||||
Source of Funding / Amount |
|
||||
Strategic Agendas | Inclusive economic growth |
||||
Drivers of Change | Gender Equity and Mainstreaming Governance and capacity development |
||||
Sector / Subsector | Education / Secondary |
||||
Gender Equity and Mainstreaming | Effective gender mainstreaming | ||||
Description | Sri Lanka has recorded a steady economic growth of 5% per annum for the past decade. In 2019, it attained an upper middle-income country status with a per capita income of $4,020. To continue achieving higher incomes and better standards of living, the government commits to becoming a knowledge-based economy by 2025. Investments in human capital and education have been prioritized for economic diversification and enhanced productivity. Alignment with country strategy and ADB's value addition: SESIP is aligned with ADB's Strategy 2030, ADB's Country Partnership Strategy 2018-2022 and contributes to pillar 1 (promoting economic diversification and productivity enhancement) by upgrading human capital. It is included in the ADB's Country Operations Business Plan 2020-2022. Although SESIP financing represents only 3.4% of government secondary education spending, it aims to bring transformational change to secondary education and will add value by (i) supporting integrated reforms in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment that will influence the overall education sector; (ii) training teachers with innovative training modalities that will impact on both pre-service and in-service teacher training quality and modalities; and (iii) focusing efforts at the school level with dedicated resources to improve learning outcomes of the underperforming rural school students. ADB's extensive engagement and experience in implementing similar reforms in several other Asian countries can be utilized. ADB is a long-term, trusted partner of Sri Lanka in secondary education and skills development and has ongoing projects in skills development and higher education, where strong synergy with secondary education will be sought. SESIP will support the government's secondary education sub-sector program, expected to cost $5.80 billion from 2020 to 2025. ADB will finance $195 million for the RBL and $5 million for the associated project loan, with the balance to be funded by the government. The program expenditure framework and financing plan is in Appendix 4. Considering the ongoing efforts being made by the government in preparing SESIP, financing for prior results may be considered in areas that are integral to curriculum and pedagogical reform -- central to the success of reform implementation. The RBL program and the associated project loan will be implemented from May 2020 to December 2025. The MOE will be the executing agency for both RBL and investment project. A SESIP steering committee will be established, comprising MOE, National Education Commission, National Institute of Education, Department of Examinations, Provincial Council, Finance Commission, and PEAs and other key stakeholders. The steering committee will be headed by Secretary, MOE. A SESIP program unit will be established within MOE to coordinate and monitor the progress in achieving the DLIs as well as implement and monitor the procurement of consulting services under the investment project. Procurement for the associated project loan will be undertaken following the ADB Procurement Policy: Goods, Works, Non-consulting and Consulting Services (2017, as amended from time to time); and the ADB Procurement Regulations for ADB Borrowers: Goods, Works, Non-consulting and Consulting Services (2017, as amended from time to time). |
||||
Project Rationale and Linkage to Country/Regional Strategy | Results-based lending with associated project loan. RBL modality is appropriate to support the government's well-defined reform program-the Education Sector Development plan, 2018-2025-because it focuses on large scale system reforms and critical results rather than specific transactions and expenditures as in the case of project modality. The RBL modality will leverage resources to strengthen and sustain key reforms in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment systems and catalyze increased government and development partner resources around a set of common program results. The RBL modality will also reduce high transaction costs associated with multiple small transactions with provincial authorities and schools across the country. Initial assessments indicate that while systems are adequate for RBL implementation, there is a need to further augment institutional development. Given the ambitious reforms proposed in the RBL, the Government has made a request for dedicated resources to finance critical technical inputs to support reform initiatives. Hence, an investment loan of $5 million will be incorporated with the RBL modality to finance consulting services to support institutional strengthening of the MOE and related agencies only. As program systems are used to implement the RBL program, and reforms are implemented by government staff, the associated project loan will be used to strengthen RBL program systems and capacity, enhance sustainability and institutionalize good practices. Incorporating the project loan with the RBL will reduce transaction costs of processing two separate lending operations. The executing agency and stakeholders have experience in implementing a RBL program and the reform-focused, robust disbursement-linked indicators (DLIs) are being developed in close consultation with stakeholders. | ||||
Impact | Human resource development enhanced, supporting healthy and productive citizens and a globally competitive knowledge-centered economy. |
Project Outcome | |
---|---|
Description of Outcome | Secondary education system transformed and aligned with evolving labor force needs. |
Progress Toward Outcome | |
Implementation Progress | |
Description of Project Outputs | Quality and relevance of secondary science, technology, mathematics, and commerce programs enhanced. Provincial and school capacity to implement education reforms strengthened. Sector management capacity strengthened. |
Status of Implementation Progress (Outputs, Activities, and Issues) | (i) Inquiry-based blended learning curricula developed for O' and A' Level program-targeted subjects for grades 10 13, mainstreaming gender; (ii) gender-sensitive national media campaign and implementation plan developed to raise awareness on communicable disease risk, benefit of blended learning approaches, new STMC curriculum, and pedagogy and assessment systems which integrate 21st century skills and meet labor market needs; and (iii) all instructional materials for O' and A' Level program-targeted subjects for grades 10 13 developed/revised as appropriate and approved, including online/distance learning modules on selected topics. (i) National Applied Resource Hub (ARH) at NIE and Provincial ARHs are staffed and equipped as per criteria/minimum standards established by NIE and include a pool of resource trainers for Sinhala and Tamil medium and bilingual education; and (ii) teacher training modules for grades 10 13 new O' and A' Level program-targeted subjects, including content for online teacher training, developed based on the TSF and approved. (i) School-based teacher mapping completed to set baseline for program schools; and (ii) percentage of teachers for program-targeted subjects and subject streams deployed in accordance with MOE Circular on Determination of Teacher Cadres increased from baseline in at least 50% of program schools for O' Level and 20% of program schools for A' Level. i) Instructional leadership modules aligned to the new curriculum developed and approved; (ii) TOT on instructional leadership completed for 75% of the Faculty of Education Leadership Development and Management (FELDM) trainers; (iii) at least 25% of Principals, Assistant Principals, and Deputy Principals in program schools trained in instructional leadership (with at least 40% women trainees); (iv) at least 25% of Provincial, Divisional, and Zonal Education Officers, and science and mathematics In-Service Advisors (ISAs) and directors trained in instructional leadership (with at least 60% women trainees); (v) at least 80% of innovation laboratories equipped in accordance with the Minimum Standards; (vi) each province has prepared and approved a time-bound implementation plan for blended learning to support secondary education; and (vii) budget line created for the provision of school grants for implementing the SDPs. PPAs reviewed and updated for all nine provinces to align provincial and national work plans, supporting the priority educational reform agenda. |
Geographical Location | Nation-wide |
Safeguard Categories | |
---|---|
Environment | B |
Involuntary Resettlement | C |
Indigenous Peoples | C |
Summary of Environmental and Social Aspects | |
---|---|
Environmental Aspects | |
Involuntary Resettlement | |
Indigenous Peoples | |
Stakeholder Communication, Participation, and Consultation | |
During Project Design | The main beneficiaries of the program will be senior secondary students, particularly students from provinces and rural areas. The project preparation team met with students, parents, teachers, Principals and provincial education staff to seek their views and concerns and these have been incorporated in program design. While both boys and girls will benefit from improved STEM streams, the program provides a particular emphasis on attracting girls into STEM. Teachers will also benefit from training in improved pedagogy in STMC subjects. Principals, Deputy Principals and provincial and zonal education officers will benefit from educational leadership and management training. Other stakeholders of the project are staff from Ministry of Education, National Institute for Education and the Department of Education who will design and implement new curricula, pedagogies, assessments, and monitoring and evaluation systems. The stakeholders also include the School Development Committees, which prepare school development plans (SDP) and school management committees, including parents, community leaders, school management, provincial education authorities, who implement the decisions. There are no negatively affected people. Parents, community members and representatives of vulnerable groups or students living in provincial and rural areas will contribute inputs to SDPs through school development committees. The program will enhance participation, confidence-building and interactive learning by children, including vulnerable children from the poorest families. The civil society organizations working in the education sector include Room to Read, World Vision, Save the Children, and Child Fund. However, the priorities of these organizations are in the areas of primary and junior secondary levels. Therefore, the opportunities to collaborate with SESIP are minimal. The project will engage with school development societies for conducting the community awareness campaign on the new reforms i.e. curriculum reform, assessment reform, and awareness on SMTC subjects in future. |
During Project Implementation | SESIP project preparation team consulted with students and parents from provinces to obtain their feedback on the program design. The program will continue to consult and strengthen participation by students, parents and their communities through the school development committees, in the development of the communication campaign and in the implementation of school development plans. |
Responsible ADB Officer | Hoque, Uzma S. |
Responsible ADB Department | South Asia Department |
Responsible ADB Division | Human and Social Development Division, SARD |
Executing Agencies |
Ministry of Education [email protected] Ground Floor Isurupaya, Battaramulla Sri Lanka |
Timetable | |
---|---|
Concept Clearance | 26 Nov 2019 |
Fact Finding | 01 Jun 2020 to 18 Jun 2020 |
MRM | 02 Oct 2020 |
Approval | 01 Dec 2020 |
Last Review Mission | - |
Last PDS Update | 08 Dec 2021 |
Loan 4021-SRI
Milestones | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Approval | Signing Date | Effectivity Date | Closing | ||
Original | Revised | Actual | |||
01 Dec 2020 | 01 Dec 2020 | 08 Dec 2020 | 30 Jun 2026 | - | - |
Financing Plan | Loan Utilization | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total (Amount in US$ million) | Date | ADB | Others | Net Percentage | |
Project Cost | 3,201.30 | Cumulative Contract Awards | |||
ADB | 400.00 | 25 Jul 2022 | 132.26 | 0.00 | 33% |
Counterpart | 2,801.30 | Cumulative Disbursements | |||
Cofinancing | 0.00 | 25 Jul 2022 | 172.26 | 0.00 | 43% |
Status of Covenants | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Category | Sector | Safeguards | Social | Financial | Economic | Others |
Rating | - | Satisfactory | Satisfactory | Satisfactory | - | Satisfactory |
Project Data Sheets (PDS) contain summary information on the project or program. Because the PDS is a work in progress, some information may not be included in its initial version but will be added as it becomes available. Information about proposed projects is tentative and indicative.
The Access to Information Policy (AIP) recognizes that transparency and accountability are essential to development effectiveness. It establishes the disclosure requirements for documents and information ADB produces or requires to be produced.
The Accountability Mechanism provides a forum where people adversely affected by ADB-assisted projects can voice and seek solutions to their problems and report alleged noncompliance of ADB's operational policies and procedures.
In preparing any country program or strategy, financing any project, or by making any designation of, or reference to, a particular territory or geographic area in this document, the Asian Development Bank does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area.
Title | Document Type | Document Date |
---|---|---|
Loan Agreement (Ordinary Operations) for Loan 4021-SRI: Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program | Loan Agreement (Ordinary Resources) | Dec 2020 |
Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program: Report and Recommendation of the President | Reports and Recommendations of the President | Nov 2020 |
Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program: Initial Poverty and Social Analysis | Initial Poverty and Social Analysis | Nov 2019 |
Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program: Concept Paper | Concept Papers | Nov 2019 |
Safeguard Documents See also: Safeguards
Safeguard documents provided at the time of project/facility approval may also be found in the list of linked documents provided with the Report and Recommendation of the President.
Title | Document Type | Document Date |
---|---|---|
Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program: Draft Program Safeguard Systems Assessment | Program Safeguard Systems Assessments | Sep 2020 |
Secondary Education Sector Improvement Program: Draft Environmental and Social Management Framework | Environmental and Social Management System Frameworks | Sep 2020 |
Evaluation Documents See also: Independent Evaluation
None currently available.
Related Publications
None currently available.
The Access to Information Policy (AIP) establishes the disclosure requirements for documents and information ADB produces or requires to be produced in its operations to facilitate stakeholder participation in ADB's decision-making. For more information, refer to the Safeguard Policy Statement, Operations Manual F1, and Operations Manual L3.
Requests for information may also be directed to the InfoUnit.
Tenders
No tenders for this project were found.
Contracts Awarded
Contract Title | Approval Number | Contract Date | Contractor | Address | Executing Agency | Total Contract Amount (US$) | Contract Amount Financed by ADB (US$) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PAYMENT FOR DLI 3 PRIOR RESULTS 2 | Loan 4021 | 11 Dec 2020 | MINISTRY OF EDUCATION | ISURUPAYA, BATTARAMULLA SRI LANKA | Ministry of Education | 40,000,000.00 | 40,000,000.00 |
PAYMENT FOR DLI 2 PRIOR RESULTS 1 | Loan 4021 | 11 Dec 2020 | MINISTRY OF EDUCATION | ISURUPAYA, BATTARAMULLA SRI LANKA | Ministry of Education | 40,000,000.00 | 40,000,000.00 |
Procurement Plan
None currently available.