PRIMARY ED

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The Primary Education Development Project aims to strengthen the effectiveness of primary education by raising student retention, promotion and achievement levels; increasing the participation rate of poor rural and urban children; and ensuring effective planning, programming and monitoring of resources available for primary education. There are two main components : educational development and management development. The educational development component would : a) provide skills upgrading in key subject areas and teaching methods for some 600 teacher training staff of normal schools and universities and related in-service training for 10,000 public primary school teachers; b) initiate a system for maintenance of primary school facilities based largely on community inputs of labor and government financing of materials; and c) provide equipment for, and studies to evaluate, improve and expand an ongoing school nutrition program in rural areas and initiate a similar program in peri-urban areas. The management development component would : i) strengthen management information, planning, and monitoring for primary education based on school planning criteria and socio-economic indicators; ii) support selected studies on issues related to the future development and financing of basic education; and iii) introduce a student assessment system to monitor achievement in language, mathematics, social studies, and science.