PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID)



PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID)

APPRAISAL STAGE

Report No.: AB3898

|Project Name |Basic Education Quality Improvement Project |

|Region |LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN |

|Sector |General education sector (50%);Pre-primary education (25%);Secondary education (25%) |

|Project ID |P106686 |

|Borrower(s) |MINISTRY OF EDUCATION |

|Implementing Agency | |

| |Ministerio de Educación (MEDUCA) |

| |Despacho del Ministro c/o Dirección General de Educación |

| |Villa Cárdenas, Ancón. |

| |Apartado Postal 0816-04049 |

| |Panamá, República de Panamá. |

| |Tel. (507) 511-4400 / 515-7300 |

| |E-mail: meduca@meduca.gob.pa |

|Environment Category |[ ] A [X] B [ ] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined) |

|Date PID Prepared |May 14, 2008 |

|Date of Appraisal Authorization |May 27, 2008 |

|Date of Board Approval |August 5, 2008 |

I. Country and Sector Issues

Strong economic growth is expected to continue. Panama’s economy grew at a robust pace of 5 percent per year from 1997 through 2006 and an even faster 7.5 percent per year from 2004 through 2006, a mild recession in 2004 notwithstanding (World Bank, 2007a)[1]. Current estimates suggest growth will continue at almost 9 percent or more in coming years as a Government-led project to expand the Panama Canal gives an added boost to the economy (World Bank, 2007b). Real per capita GDP rose 2.7 percent per year since 2000, placing Panama among the world’s upper-middle-income nations with a per capita income of 7,900 (PPP 2006). Although unemployment is relatively low at 4 percent of the labor force (World Bank, 2006), Panama’s strong growth is heavily concentrated in the export and service sectors, which have generated relatively few jobs in the formal economy (Galiani, 2007).

Growth has helped Panama improve social indicators, but poverty and inequality remain a challenge. Increased social spending has helped improve social indicators such as infant and child survival and education enrollment rates at all levels, however, in 2003, over a third of Panamanians still lived in poverty and more than one-sixth lived in extreme poverty. Income inequality –with a Gini Index of 0.56 as of 2003- is one of the highest in the world and higher than the average for countries with similar per capita income levels. Poverty rates are highest among people with the lowest levels of educational attainment, hence unequal education opportunities translate into more social and economic disparities (World Bank, 2006).

Rural and indigenous communities are the most affected by resilient poverty and growing inequality. Poverty affects close to 60 percent of the population in rural areas and virtually all people living in indigenous areas, where the poverty rate reaches 98 percent (World Bank, 2006). Nearly 10 percent of Panama’s 3.5 million people belong to indigenous groups, the three largest of which have obtained semi-autonomous comarcas.[2] All three are far from cities and roads, adding lack of infrastructure to the challenges of delivering services. The migration of indigenous people to cities in search for better economic opportunities has led to rising urban poverty rates. The percentage of poor people living in cities doubled to 16 percent between 1997 and 2003 (World Bank, 2006).

Furthermore, Panama’s lack of progress in reducing poverty and inequality cannot be attributed to low levels of social spending. The country spends more than 18 percent of its GDP in the social sectors, which is substantially higher than the average in Latin America (14 percent) and matches Costa Rica (18 percent), the country with the highest investment in social programs in the region. Therefore, improving the targeting of social programs and efficiency of spending must take priority to redress the entrenched inequalities in social sector outcomes.

Key issues in the Education Sector

The education sector has reached important milestones. More than 18 percent of government social spending was dedicated to education in 2005, up from less than 15 percent in 2000. This increase in spending supported Panama’s efforts to broaden access to education in all areas of the country. From 2000 to 2005, preschool enrollment for children aged 4 and 5 increased from 36 to 62 percent while at primary level enrollment reached universality. Between 1996 and 2005, coverage at secondary level rose by 18 percent and most recently, the professional and vocational training system entered a phase of rapid modernization and it now offers an increasing number of courses covering the immediate demand for skills in key sectors of the economy. In addition, the proportion of the population with completed tertiary education -9.9 percent in 2000- is higher than the average among Latin American countries -4.9 percent- and OECD member countries -9.5 percent. With a university gross enrollment rate of 31 percent, Panama is the country with the region’s second largest proportion of students enrolled in tertiary education in the region, second only to Argentina. Furthermore, Panama has met the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets of gender parity at all education levels (World Bank, 2007c).

However, national averages mask deep social, regional and ethnic disparities in education outcomes. To this point, the 2007 joint report from the Programa de Promoción de la Reforma Educativa (PREAL) and the Consjeo del Sector Privado para la Asistencia Educacional (CoSPAE), as well as the Primer Informe al Señor Presidente de la Republica issued by the Consejo Nacional la Educación (CONACED) in 2006 and the Plan de Concertación Nacional para el Desarrollo identified key challenges for the sector. Key among these are the need for programs to improve quality, equity, internal efficiency and governance in education and the development of appropriate systems to measure outcomes and longer term impacts. These are discussed next.

One of the main problems in the sector concerns the low quality of education produced by the system. The results from three national assessment tests indicate that most students have significant problems in applying essential skills and competencies in basic academic subjects. In 2000, at least 40 percent of the students showed learning deficiencies in all grades and subjects tested, particularly in Mathematics and Social Sciences (PRODE / ME-BID, 2000). In 2001, results from the Comprender exam confirmed these deficiencies when participating students at all grades were able to respond less than 50 percent correct answers in each subject. Moreover, the 2005 SINECA[3] results provided a gloomier picture: more than 50 percent of 3rd and 6th graders scored “deficient” in all subjects; among 9th and 12th graders, this proportion rose to 70 percent in Spanish and 85 percent in Mathematics. What is more, in 2006, more than half of the students attempting to enter the University of Panama failed the university entry exam (PREAL-CoSPAE, 2007).

In addition, inequities are deeply ingrained in the system. Measures of enrollment, retention, completion and learning achievement show significant disparities between education levels in urban, rural and indigenous localities. In 2005, net enrollment rates at pre-school, lower and upper secondary levels reached 55.3 percent (ages 4 and 5), 64.5 percent (ages 12 to 14), and 44 percent (ages 15-17), respectively, compared to universality at primary education. National net enrollment rates vary widely across regions: for example, secondary net enrollment rates in the relatively urbanized province of Colón reach 71 percent compared to 25 percent in the Ngäbe Buglé and Kuna Yala comarcas and only 3 percent in the Emberá comarcas. In terms of completion rates, only 35 percent of the students living in rural localities and 10 percent living in indigenous communities complete secondary education compared to 60 percent among those living in urban areas. Also, indigenous sixth graders scored well below the 2005 SIENCA national averages, attaining 23.2 in Spanish and 35.9 in Mathematics, compared to 44.8 and 46.8 for rural, and 50.9 and 48.6 for urban students, respectively (MEDUCA, 2006). Learning achievement results were similar among students in grades 3, 9 and 12.

Also, internal efficiency is low overall and it perpetuates inequalities. High overage and low completion rates constitute a sign of persistent internal inefficiency. According to MEDUCA, the rate of overage students is 32.2 percent in primary and almost 50 percent in secondary education (MEDUCA, 2005). As for drop-out and completion rates, cohort analyses using 2005 data on primary and secondary levels showed that for every 1,000 students who began primary school, only 817 completed the full six-year cycle and fewer than 600 did so without repeating a grade. Similarly, at the secondary level, for every 1,000 students entering grade 7, fewer than half went on to complete grade 12 and only 357 did so without repeating a grade. Problems of internal efficiency as the ones mentioned above increase operational costs and reduce spending efficiency. The 2007 PREAL-CoSPAE report estimated that the cost of grade repetition at all pre-university levels averaged USD 17 million per year between 2000 and 2004.

The poor and indigenous are the most affected by problems of internal efficiency. Repetition rates in the indigenous comarcas are significantly higher -10.5 percent in Kuna Yala, 17.5 in Comarca Emberá and 13.5 in Comarca Ngäbe-Bugle-, than the national average of 5 percent. Drop-out rates in primary education are close to 10 percent in all three communities, and as much as 32.2 in secondary in Kuna Yala, compared to national averages of 3.2 percent at the primary level and 11.4 percent at the secondary level. In addition, curricular programs in rural and indigenous communities do not match their economic and social contexts, and teachers are not equipped with the appropriate skills to provide a culturally-relevant learning experience in their classrooms.

Sector governance, administration and management functions are weak, thus hindering efforts to improve equity, quality and technical efficiency. Although MEDUCA has increased its capacity to deliver services in the last years, the Ministry continues to perform poorly in delivering targeted results. This cannot be blamed on insufficient resources as Panama invests the equivalent of 5.8 percent of its GDP in education, compared to an average 4.1 percent among middle-income countries in the region. Yet, pre-school and secondary net enrollment rates in Panama fall behind net rates in Latin American countries with similar income (World Bank, 2006b). Among the several governance issues identified in the 2006 CONACE report, three of them appear to have the greatest effect on institutional performance:

• Inefficient budget allocation at the central level. Budget allocations skew towards non-investment expenses as two-thirds of the Ministry’s budget is devoted to salary payments, the only title in the budget that increases annually due to the addition of new teachers, annual teacher and administrators bonuses, and seniority promotions. Also, budget allocation mechanisms tend to favor urban instead of the rural and indigenous areas that, I spite of serving 50 percent of the student population, receive only 35 percent of total school subsidies.

• Obsolete information processes have produced untimely administrative records. It takes 13 to 15 months for the National Directorate for Education Planning to produce their annual education statistics report. By the time this is released, implementing units are already supervising or evaluating interventions based on their own estimates or on data from other ministries, which is often also incomplete and outdated.

• Lack of a culture of strategic planning at the national and regional levels. This, in addition to excessive red tape and centralized decision-making have resulted in a massive, unarticulated flow of information supported by a wide variety of legal instruments, regulations, law decrees and internal operation memorandums that often contradict each other. As a result, directorates working in isolation often duplicate activities leaving overlapped responsibilities unaccountable.

II. Higher-Level Objectives

The Project’s higher level objective aims at increasing Panama’s human capital base by further improving the equity and quality of education at pre-school and basic education levels as well as its cultural relevance to rural and indigenous population is consistent with the GoP’s development pillars stated in their “Strategic Vision of Economic and Employment Development Towards 2009”.

From these pillars, the Project addresses Pillar III (human development investment) through interventions targeting the quality of education and the equity in access to educational opportunities to disadvantaged populations, particularly in remote and indigenous areas. Attention to Pillar V (strengthened institutional and technical capacity) is reflected by activities aiming to improve MEDUCA’s capacity and performance, through the development of policy-relevant information systems. The overall scope of the program addresses Pillar I (poverty reduction and improved income distribution) through investments that promote human capital development and a more equitable distribution of quality education as these measures have been widely documented in literature to contribute to the reduction of long-term poverty and inequality (Vegas & Petrow, 2007; Hanushek & Wöβmann, 2007; Thomas et al, 2000; Barro, 1995; Benhabib & Spiegel, 1994).

III. Rationale for Bank Involvement

The Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) with Panama approved in 2007 emphasizes human capital accumulation (Pillar IV) and equity of educational opportunities as key interventions to reduce poverty and inequality (Pillar I).

In addition, the GoP and the Bank have developed a strong base of analytical studies on Panama’s economic growth prospects and social development, including the 2006 Poverty Assessment, the 2005 Public Expenditure Review and the 2007 Country Economic Memorandum. These studies identify the challenges and opportunities facing education, training and innovation systems in the country and inform policy decision-making to guide future sector investments, including the proposed project, in line with the Government’s policy agenda.

At the sector level, the Bank has a 10-year technical dialogue and investment partnership with MEDUCA, supporting operations in early-childhood and basic education (World Bank, 1996 and 2003) with satisfactory outcomes. Currently, the Bank is financing a Second Basic Education Project with a Loan of 35 million (Ln. 70320) approved in 2000 and an Additional Finance Loan of USD 5 million (Ln. 74830) approved in August 2007. The ongoing project is a continuation of the 1996-2002 First Basic Education Project completed in 2002 and rated successfully in the achievement of all of its development objectives[4].

Also, with the launch of the Government’s program Red de Oportunidades (supported by the World Bank and Inter American Development Bank), the Second Basic Education Project became central to its success since Red de Oportunidades seeks to promote enrollment and consistent attendance in early education and primary school among children living in extreme poverty using conditional cash transfers. Thus, while Red de Oportunidades stimulates the demand side the ongoing (and proposed) operation focuses on meeting supply side challenges to meet the increase demand for places and improve the quality of service provision.

IV. Project Description

The lending instrument proposed is a Specific Investment Loan (SIL) for an estimated amount of USD 37 million to be disbursed over a period of five years. The SIL option is an appropriate lending instrument to support sector-specific operations in the current transition period in the Bank-GoP collaboration, as reflected in the Panama Country Partnership Strategy.

V. Project Development Objective and Key Indicators

The Project Development Objective (PDO) seeks to support the Government of Panama to improve: (i) the quality of non-formal early-childhood education, basic (grades 1-9) and secondary (10-12) education programs; (ii) the coverage and internal efficiency of initial and basic education; and (iii) the strategic planning and institutional performance of the Ministry of Education at the central, regional and local levels. Improving equity is considered a transversal principle and therefore it is embedded in each component of the Project.

Although the focus of the Project centers on strengthening programs in pre-school and basic (grades 1-9) education levels, selected activities at secondary education (grades 10-12) were incorporated into the Project’s design in order to promote a better integration between basic and secondary education and to contribute to the reduce the technology gap in the region by fostering IT literacy skills among young students and secondary school graduates.

Progress towards PDO accomplishment will be measured against the following Project Outcome Indicators (POIs) improvements on: (i) the difference in learning outcomes between a sample of schools participating in the National Plan for Learning Quality Improvement compared to the national averages of SINECA exams for grades 3, 6, and 9 in Spanish, Mathematics, Natural and Social Sciences; (ii) the difference in the survival rate of students at the 5th grade between intervention schools and the national average; (iii) net enrollment rates for children in early education programs (age 4 and 5) and basic education (grades 1-9); (iv) repetition rate in basic education levels (grades 1-6); (v) graduation rates from grade 9; and (vi) the rate of school-incorporation into MEDUCA’s national network of schools (Red Nacional MEDUCA). [5] Since equity is the transversal principle, POIs will reflect gender, ethnicity, region, pedagogical model of instruction and school-type differences, in addition to income quintile differences when applicable.

Component 1: Improved Education Quality (Total estimated cost: USD 16.74 million. Bank financing: USD 14.56 million, GoP financing: USD 2.18 million). This component aims to continue improving education quality in basic education (grades 1-9) and secondary (10-12) programs through a series of interventions addressing teachers, students, curricular content, pedagogical methods of instruction and institutional assessment systems.

Component 2: Increase enrollment levels and successful completion in early-childhood and basic educational programs. (Total estimated cost: USD 18.83 million. Bank financing: USD 16.39 million, GoP financing: USD 2.44 million). This component will seek to expand non-formal early-childhood and primary education programs, as well as to increase the internal efficiency of the system from pre-school to basic education (grades 1-9) programs.

Component 3: Strengthen the institutional capacity and performance of the Ministry of Education. (Total estimated cost: USD 6.43 million. Bank financing: USD 6.05 million, GoP financing: USD 0.38 million). This component will aim to support strategic investments to MEDUCA’s institutional and technical capacity to improve the administrative, management, monitoring and evaluation performance of the educational system.

VI. Financing

|Source: |($m.) |

|Borrower |5.0 |

|International Bank for Reconstruction and Development |37.0 |

| Total |42.0 |

VII. Implementation

MEDUCA will take overall responsibility for managing the Project within its regular institutional structure, which will facilitate compliance with technical, financial, and administrative procedures supporting project progress towards PDO accomplishment. Overall responsibility for the successful completion of the Project will fall under the authority of the Director General for Education (Director General de Educación), responsible also for the oversight of each of the three components. National Directorates will be responsible for implementing programs and activities outlined in their corresponding sub-component and will be held accountable for the periodical oversight and successful completion of their respective interventions. MEDUCA’s Regional Coordinating Units will be responsible for coordinating activities at the regional and local levels, mainly, those related to expansion of existing and the implementation of new programs. Day-to-day operations will be monitored by an Operation Task Team embedded in MEDUCA’s institutional structure. M&E mechanisms, outlined in the Project Operation Manual, will provide the basis to ensure horizontal collaboration between these units.

VIII. Critical risks and possible controversial aspects

Several potential risks have been identified, including those at the country and sector-level, and those related directly to the Project. (the Project Appraisal Document address presents the main risks the Project faces and the proposed mitigation measures are described)

IX. Sustainability

The sustainability of project investments is primarily dependent on government ability to finance incremental recurrent costs of new and expanded educational programs, such as non-formal pre-school education and Telebásica programs. A careful first assessment of the financial impact of project and sector budget has been made during pre-appraisal and specific government commitments have been negotiated to ensure continued financing of incremental recurrent costs, especially those associated to the expansion of the CEFACEI and initial education programs, and the Telebásica program. The financial sustainability of the Project is likely given that the increment in expenditure is relatively small.

X. Lessons Learned from Past Operations in the Country/Sector

Important lessons from the Panama Second Basic Education Project and other similar Bank financed education projects in Latin America have been incorporated in the designed of the Project. Key among these are: (i) mainstreaming project implementation into ministries’ administrating structures has proven crucial to maximizing ownership and increase project sustainability; (ii) defining clear objectives, measurable results and outcome indicators is important to avoid potential problems of attribution; (iii) maintaining simplicity in the project’s design to keep under control the number of activities associated to each component and subcomponents; (iv) embedding impact evaluations on project design from the outset to gather rigorous evidence that may serve to guide future sector policy and decision making; (v) ensuring quality at entry to avoid delays in project implementation (vi) providing technical assistance on a timely basis well before project launch in order to ensure implementation readiness at the Ministry’s Directorates responsible for fiduciary and procurement responsibilities; and (vii) postponing interventions that require legislative changes or protracted negotiations with teacher unions, as they may not materialize thus risking the successful completion of the project

XI. Safeguard Policies (including public consultation)

1. An Indigenous Peoples Plan (IPP) is was prepared by the National Directorate of Intercultural Bilingual Education at the MEDUCA in consultation with the Indigenous Congresses and bilingual teachers. The plan supports the efforts of the GOP to provide quality intercultural bilingual education to indigenous children whose native language and culture are different from mainstream, and who may suffer from poverty and limited education opportunities. (See Annex 10 of the PAD)

|Safeguard Policies Triggered by the Project |Yes |No |

|Environmental Assessment (OP/BP 4.01) |[ ] |[X] |

|Natural Habitats (OP/BP 4.04) |[ ] |[X] |

|Pest Management (OP 4.09) |[ ] |[X] |

|Physical Cultural Resources (OP/BP 4.11) |[ ] |[X] |

|Involuntary Resettlement (OP/BP 4.12) |[ ] |[X] |

|Indigenous Peoples (OP/BP 4.10) |[X] |[ ] |

|Forests (OP/BP 4.36) |[ ] |[X] |

|Safety of Dams (OP/BP 4.37) |[ ] |[X] |

|Projects in Disputed Areas (OP/BP 7.60) |[ ] |[X] |

|Projects on International Waterways (OP/BP 7.50) |[ ] |[X] |

XII. List of Factual Technical Documents

BARNETT, S., (1993), “Benefits of Compensatory Preschool Education”, Journal of Human Resources, 279-312.

BARNETT, S., (1995), “Long-Term Effects of Early Childhood Programs on Cognitive and School Outcomes”, The Future of Children, 25-50.

BARRO, Robert, and X. Sala-I-Martin. 1995. Economic Growth. New York: McGraw-Hill.

BENHABIB, Jess, and Mark Spiegel. 1994. “The Role of Human Capital in Economic Development.” in Mario Paganetto Baldassarri and Edmond S. Luigi Phelps, eds., International Differences in Growth Rates: Market Globalization and Economic Areas. Central Issues in Contemporary Economic Theory and Practice Series. New York and London: St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Press.

BLAU, D.M. and J. Currie, (2004), “Preschool, Day Care, and After School Care: Who’s Minding the Kids?” NBER Working Paper, # 10670, Cambridge MA.

CARNEIRO, P. and J. Heckman, (2003), “Human Capital Policy”, in J. Heckman and A. Krueger, eds., Inequality in America: What role for human capital policies?, Boston, MIT Press.

CONACED (2006). Consejo Nacional de la Educación, Primer Informe al Señor Presidente de la Republica, Cuidad de Panamá, Panamá. 2006.

CUNHA, F., J. Heckman, L. Lochner, and D. Masterov, (2006), “Interpreting the Evidence on Life Cycle Skill Formation”, forthcoming in E. Hanushek and F. Welch, eds., Handbook of the Economics of Education, Amsterdam, Elsevier.

CURRIE, J. and D. Thomas, (1995), “Does Head Start Make a Difference?”, American Economic Review, 85, 341-364.

CURRIE, J. and D. Thomas, (1999), “Does Head Start Help Hispanic Children?”, Journal of Public Economics 74, 235-262.

CURRIE, J., (2001), “Early Childhood Education Programs”, Journal of Economic Perspectives 15, 213-238.

DANZIGER, S. and J. Waldfogel, (2000), Securing the Future: Investing in Children from Birth to College, Russell Sage Foundation.

GALIANI, S. (2007) “Labor market reform in LAC: Where do we stand?”, Mimeo.

GARCES, E., D. Thomas and J. Currie, (2002), “Longer-Term Effects of Head Start”, American Economic Review, 92, 999-1012.

HANUSHEK, E. & Wößmann, L. (2007). The Role of Education Quality in Economic Growth, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4122.

KAROLY, L. et al., (1998), Investing in our Children: What we Know and Don’t Know about the Costs and Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions, Santa Monica: RAND.

KAUFMANN, Nalin Kishor, Ramón López, and Yan Wang. The World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2000.

MEDUCA (1999) “Evaluacion de Proceso y de Impacto de los Sub-Componentes”, Ciudad de Panama, Panama.

MEDUCA (2005) Panamá - Indicadores de Educación 2005. Ciudad de Panama, Panama.

MEDUCA (2006). Informe de Pruebas de Logros Académicos en 2005. Sistema Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad de los Aprendizajes (SINECA). Ciudad de Panamá. Panamá.

PREAL/COSPAE (2007). Aprender 2007: Informe de Progreso Educativo en Panamá, PREAL-CoSPAE, Ciudad de Panamá, Panamá.

REYNOLDS, A., (1998), “Extended Early Childhood Intervention and School Achievement: Age Thirteen Findings from the Chicago Longitudinal Study”, Child Development, 69, 231-246.

SCHWEINHART, L. J., J. Montie, Z. Xiang., W.S. Barnett, C. R. Belfield, M. Nores, (2005), “Lifetime effects: The High/Scope Perry Preschool study through age 40”, Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation 14.

THOMAS V., Mansoor Dailami, Ashok Dhareshwar (2007) The Quality of Growth, the World Bank Group, Washington, D.C.

WORLD BANK (1996), Basic Education Project- Staff Appraisal Report, Washington, DC

_______________(2000), Second Basic Education Project - Project Appraisal Document, Washington, DC

_______________(2003), Basic Education Project- Implementation and Completion Report, Washington, DC

_______________(2006), Panama Poverty Assessment. Report No. 36307-PA. Washington, DC.

_______________ (2006b), Panama Public Expenditure Review (PER), World Bank, Washington, D.C.

_______________(2007a), Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) Report No. 39040-PA. Washington, DC.

_______________(2007b), Development Policy Loan. Washington, DC. (Draft September 11, 2007).

_______________(2007c), Country Economic Memorandum (CEM). Report No. 41348-PA Washington, DC. (Draft November 8, 2007)

_______________ (2007d). Project Appraisal Document in support of the Program “Red de Oportunidades”. Report Np. 39193-PA. Washington, DC.

XIII. Contact point

Contact: Alexandria Valerio

Title: Education Spec.

Tel: (202) 473-0914

Fax:

Email: Avalerio@

XIV. For more information contact:

The InfoShop

The World Bank

1818 H Street, NW

Washington, D.C. 20433

Telephone: (202) 458-4500

Fax: (202) 522-1500

Email: pic@

Web:

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[1] For a complete list of bibliographical references see final section in Annex 12.

[2] The Ngöbe Buglé lies near the border with Costa Rica, the Emberá near the border with Colombia and the Kuna Yala in the San Blas archipelago.

[3] The Sistema Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad de los Aprendizajes (SINECA) administered its first national achievement test in November 2005. Students in grades 3, 6 and 9 were tested in Spanish, Mathematics, Social Sciences and Natural sciences, those in grade 12 were tested in Spanish, English and Mathematics only.

[4] All ratings were satisfactory, including performance from the Borrower and the World Bank. Project is scheduled for closure on December 31st, 2008.

[5] The Red Nacional MEDUCA consists of a network of schools connected through the internet to the central and regional offices, thus providing real-time administrative, academic and financial information straight from the source –i.e. the school. Service delivery to connected schools -11 percent- has improved significantly as regional supervisors and national directors are able to receive timely reports and data on school and program operation.

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