USD 10.85 million additional grant to support education sector

KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 4

The Government of Nepal and World Bank today signed an agreement for an additional grant of US$10.85 million for the School Sector Development Programme to ensure access to education and continued learning for children amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The government’s SSDP is a sector-wide programme supported by International Development Association credit of USD 10.85 million, with support from Asian Development Bank, European Union, Finland, Global Partnership for Education, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Norway, USAID, UNICEF and REACH Multi-Donor Trust Fund, administered by World Bank. The programme aims to improve quality, equitable access, and efficiency of basic and secondary education in Nepal.

Additional grant from the GPE COVID-19 Accelerated Funds will contribute to implementation of Ministry of Education, Science and Technology’s COVID-19 contingency plan to mitigate and respond to potential impacts of the pandemic in the sector of education.

The agreement was signed by Joint Secretary of Ministry of Finance, Shreekrishna Nepal on behalf of the Government of Nepal and by World Bank Country Director for Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, Faris Hadad-Zervos.

“We are thankful to World Bank and GPE for the additional grant that will help mitigate learning loss for children due to the impact of COV- ID-19,” said Joint Secretary Nepal.

“The grant provides much needed support to the government to respond to the impacts of the pandemic to enable continuity of learning during school closures, enable schools to safely resume and mitigate the impacts on students and teachers, including loss of learning time and psychosocial impacts.”

“The education sector in Nepal and across the world has been one of the hardest hit due to the pandemic which has deeply affected learning outcomes for children,” said Hadad-Zervos. “While supporting immediate needs for safeguarding access and learning for children, especially girls, the additional grant will support broader resilient recovery efforts of the government and help build back better education sector in Nepal.”

The additional grant will finance activities to support and remote learning programmes through television, radio and learning portal as well as printed learning packs for the children, who do not have access to media or internet. The grant will support communication campaigns and teacher professional development programmes and help strengthen education management information systems.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on September 5, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.