Global Partnership for Education Grant for Basic Education Project

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The objective of the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative Catalytic Fund (CF) Project for Liberia is to increase access to basic education, with a particular focus on poor areas, to improve conditions of teaching and learning, and to improve school management and accountability. There are three components to the project. The first component of the project is increasing access and equity in rural areas. This component will support the construction of classrooms, taking into consideration the special circumstances of remote and hard-to-reach areas, by using two different approaches. The first approach will be a delegated management approach whereby a competent firm will be hired for the management and supervision of the construction program (24 primary schools and 20 junior high schools), while the second approach will be a community driven development (CDD) approach for the construction of about 16 primary schools in hard-to-reach areas where it is difficult to find contractors. The second component of the project is improving the quality of teaching and learning. This component will include: (a) provision of learning materials to both students and teachers; (b) provision of grants to schools after a rigorous strengthening of the existing system; (c) support for early childhood development (ECD) models with a focus on community-based ECD provision in rural areas and systems development; and (d) school health, including de-worming of children in eight counties. The third component of the project is strengthening management capacities and developing a framework for institutional capacity building with a focus on monitoring and evaluation. Under this component, the CF support will strengthen the Ministry of Education (MOE) structures at central and school levels. Activities under this component will include: (a) the establishment of a Project Support Team (PST) to assist with the day-to-day management of the CF project; the Project Support Team (PST) will include a project coordinator and financial management and procurement specialists; (b) capacity building for the departments of planning, administration, and instruction; (c) training of District Education Officers (DEOs) and school directors for monitoring and tracking school level data in close collaboration with European Union (EU)-funded project, as well as training of DEOs and teachers on the use of learning assessment instruments; (d) technical assistance (TA) for the design of a national assessment instrument; and (e) TA to strengthen personnel and payroll management.