Ali­cia Llanos

Ali­cia Llanos

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has re­ceived a $48.7 mil­lion loan from the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) in sup­port of its Seam­less Ed­u­ca­tion Sys­tem Pro­gramme.

The pro­gramme is aimed at de­vel­op­ing ear­ly child­hood care and ed­u­ca­tion.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's loan-sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Alexan­dra Street, St Clair, res­i­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank Iwan Sew­berath Miss­er said in the 40-year re­la­tion­ship be­tween the IDB and T&T, five loans had been ap­proved, to­talling US$200 mil­lion.

The IDB has been proac­tive in help­ing T&T ex­pand its ed­u­ca­tion­al sys­tem and had helped fi­nance two min­istry pro­grammes in 1987 and 1990.

He said the IDB viewed ed­u­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives as a pri­or­i­ty and that it was an ho­n­our to sup­port the pro­gramme.

Miss­er al­so said that through su­per­vi­sion and mon­i­tor­ing the IDB would as­sure the mon­ey would cov­er the ar­eas where it was most need­ed.

The IDB, Miss­er as­sured, would con­tin­ue to lend tech­ni­cal sup­port to the min­istry to en­sure the ef­fi­cien­cy of the pro­gramme.

He said the IDB com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment's ini­tia­tive to em­pha­sise the im­por­tance of ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tion, say­ing it was the best in­vest­ment for a car­ing, cog­ni­tive­ly-de­vel­oped and pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Es­ther Le Gen­dre said sign­ing of the loan was a mile­stone in the de­vel­op­ment of ed­u­ca­tion, ad­her­ing to the Gov­ern­ment's vi­sion 2020 that strived to achieve a car­ing, de­vel­oped so­ci­ety.

She said the IDB had al­ways shown com­mit­ment to the im­prove­ment of the ed­u­ca­tion­al sec­tor, fi­nanc­ing a 1987 pri­ma­ry school project, which in­clud­ed teacher train­ing and class plan­ning.

In 1990 the IDB al­so fi­nanced a sec­ondary school project.

Le Gen­dre said the loan from IDB would go to­wards the min­istry's fo­cus of de­vel­op­ing qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, re­form­ing the min­istry it­self and ef­forts to in­volve the com­mu­ni­ty in ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tives.

Plan­ning, Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Emi­ly Dick-Forde, who acts as Gov­er­nor to the IDB, said im­prov­ing the ed­u­ca­tion­al sys­tem was a fun­da­men­tal part of the Gov­ern­ment's Vi­sion 2020.

Dick-Forde said a pil­lar of Vi­sion 2020 was to de­vel­op an ed­u­cat­ed and in­no­v­a­tive pop­u­la­tion.

IDB Loan

Al­lo­ca­tion of the loan

The loan for the Seam­less Ed­u­ca­tion Sys­tem Pro­gramme would go to­wards:

? Mod­erni­sa­tion of the pri­ma­ry school cur­ricu­lum

? De­vel­op­ment of per­for­mance stan­dards

? As­sess­ment and test­ing to im­prove lit­er­a­cy

? Train­ing for re­search and de­vel­op­ment staff

? Im­ple­ment­ing Span­ish as a pri­ma­ry school sub­ject, to pro­mote it as a first for­eign lan­guage

? Ex­pan­sion of IT sys­tems

? Up­grad­ing of ed­u­ca­tion­al cen­tres

? Im­ple­men­ta­tion of in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion, which in­cludes spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes.