Tertiary Technical Education and Training Support Project

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This project seeks to address three main constraints that prevents the tertiary technical education sector in Bolivia from fulfilling its potential to contribute to productivity enhancement, poverty reduction and supporting a climate resilient society. Tertiary Technical Institutes (TTIs) that comprise this sector suffer from inadequate learning environments, insufficiently prepared teachers with many lacking digital skills essential for technological careers, and absence of strong linkages with the labor market and the productive sector. Students who attend TTIs, many of them from rural areas, from Indigenous populations and from disadvantaged background have high expectations of acquiring life-changing skills from taking courses in TTIs. The idea of this project is to better fulfill these expectations through investment in the TTIs which are administered directly by the Ministry of Education of Bolivia.Component 1: Support for Productivity in Tertiary Technological Education – Sector Level: This component forms the core of the project, with three sub-components that are directed at supporting the entire sector of tertiary technical education. Subcomponent 1.1: Learning Environment for the Effectiveness of Tertiary Technical Education: This subcomponent is intended to improve the learning environment of TTIs through two lines of intervention: (i) ensure that the institutes have the necessary equipment and access to materials to impart the competencies for the particular courses they offer; and (ii) teaching and learning in transversal or cross-sectoral competencies required for productivity enhancement are strengthened. Subcomponent 1.2: Digitalization to support Teaching and Learning: This sub-component will improve teaching and learning and system management through the development and deployment of digital technologies. All systems will include special attention to ensure that diversity is promoted and norms and regulations regarding personal data protection are followed. Subcomponent 1.3: Support for Equity and Inclusion in Tertiary Technical Education: This sub-component will support activities which are intended to reduce drop-out during training and increase post-training placement so that the institutes better serve the students, particularly the underprivileged youth. Furthermore, these activities would support increasing equity by increasing enrollment of women and indigenous population in tertiary technical institutions. The Project will devise strategies to promote greater inclusion as part of the planned consultation processComponent 2: Support for Productivity in Tertiary Technical Education for strategically selected sectors. In addition to Component 1 activities that affects all institutions and courses, the project will target institutes and courses that serve specific strategic sectors of the economy and whose growth is held back because of current or projected skill deficiencies. This component will support a better alignment of these institutions with local and private sector needs as well as an ambitious Government plan to build productive capacity through cooperatives and State enterprises. The plan for strategic enterprises includes a substantive emphasis on climate change mitigation and adaptation, use of renewable energies and recycled materials. TTI graduates, especially from underprivileged backgrounds, equipped with technical competencies and soft skills are perceived by the Government to be a crucial input for the success of the strategic enterprises. Subcomponent 2.1: Diagnosis of labor demand and supply for occupations in the future: This subcomponent will finance technical assistance for the implementation of diagnoses related to the supply and demand for labor in the strategic sub-sectors. Subcomponent 2.2: Consultation of beneficiaries and preparation of the improvement plan: Following the studies under Subcomponent 2.1, this sub-component would finance technical assistance and support for:(i) consultations to be carried out amongst stakeholders in the sectors to identify one or more tertiary technical institutes and their partners in the productive sectors who would be interested in applying for competitive grants; (ii) prepare institutional improvement plans that would describe the use of the competitive grants. Subcomponent 2.3: Selection and Implementation of the improvement plans with the greatest productive impact: This subcomponent would support the implementation of competitively selected improvement plans. A coordination committee, headed by the Ministry of Education, with members of other ministries or agencies and relevant advisers, would evaluate the proposals of the sub-projects and propose the final ratification by the Minister of Education. To address climate change challenges, selection criteria in the competitive grant proposals will incentivize consideration of positive environmental impact.Component 3: Project Management and Impact Evaluation. This component will finance the costs of: staffing (non-civil servant staff only); other project operating costs; technical assistance required to support implementation, reporting, and monitoring and evaluation of the project, inter alia, data collection and analysis, monitoring compliance with ESF instrument, communication and outreach campaigns.