China: Guangdong Compulsory Education Project

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The development objective of the Guangdong Compulsory Education Project for China is to improve learning facilities and teaching quality in selected public primary and junior secondary schools in project counties. This project has four component. First component, improve school equipment and facilities will focus on school equipment. It will support the installation of ICT equipment in classrooms. It will also support the development of digital educational content for students. This content will be available on an existing online platform; and It will focus on school facilities. It will support the construction of classrooms. It will also support the construction of accommodations for teachers, particularly in rural locations. This sub-component will be financed by counterpart funds. Second component, strengthen the training and assessment system for Teachers and principals will support improvements in existing training content for in-service and pre-service training of teachers and principals as well as the development of new training content. The training content that will be revised and developed will be used for online learning. It will also support the development of new content and training delivery models for multi-subject teaching (including both short and long-term courses). It will support improvements in the current training system by designing an enhanced quality assurance mechanism (QAME) for teacher continuous professional development (CPD). Third component, pilot reforms to improve equity and quality of education as the government of Guangdong seeks to modernize the basic education system, a number of initiatives are under consideration. This component will allow the government to pilot initiatives focused on two core issues: equity and quality. The component will support activities that will evaluate these pilots for impact, efficiency, and cost effectiveness. This component will support pilots to improve equity and quality in compulsory education. This will include: a) providing support to left-behind children in public primary and junior middle schools. It will ensure that relevant equipment and personnel resources are available to support these children; b) enabling inclusive education in primary and junior middle schools with a particular emphasis on children with mild to moderate disabilities. It will ensure that relevant equipment and personnel resources for learning are available to all students, including those with disabilities. To this end, selected schools will be outfitted with equipment for allowing children with disabilities to participate in education in mainstream schools; c) providing mobile labs to schools in hard-to-serve areas; d) strengthening the existing system of school partnerships to improve teacher mentoring, teaching quality and school management practices; Fourth component, project Management, monitoring and evaluation will strengthen and build capacity for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and project management. As such, this component will finance the costs associated with technical assistance, supervision of the project, M&E, including a sample-based survey for the results framework, training of project implementation personnel, study tours, workshops, seminars, office equipment, and office consumables.