Primary Education for Disadvantaged Children Project (PEDC) (PO44803). Report of the Joint World Bank-Donors Progress review with Australia (AusAID), Canada (CIDA), Norway and United Kingdom (DFID)

The Project

The Primary Education for Disadvantaged Children Project (PEDC) has been running for almost six years. A multi-donor project, with support from World Bank, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and Norway, a number of sub-projects set specific goals in areas ranging from improving the infra-structure in schools to inclusive education for disabled children and reaching street children and other high risk groups. The total contributions to the program so far is close to 70 mill USD, whereof Norway has contributed close to 12 mill (72, 5 mill NOK).

Interesting Findings

• There is positive progress and results in many components of the PEDC. The Parent-Teacher Associations and school staff are clear on their roles and responsibilities, enthusiastic about the project, and appropriately applying interventions. Clear benefits to students can be seen in terms of student learning, decreased drop-out rates, increased attendance and retention etc. Also there have been seven external evaluations now of specific PEDC interventions, all showing positive results.
• The effectiveness of the PEDC project in achieving FSQL (Fundamental School Quality Levels) for primary schools in project districts is clearly demonstrated. At the beginning of the PEDC less than half the schools in the project met FSQL standards. After four years of project implementation, the rate of schools meeting FSQL standards has increased to 70.2%. This growth rate is nearly double the national average and more than doubles the districts not in the project but in the same provinces.
• An analytical comparison of data from Grade 5 Achievements study (2001 – 2007) clearly shows that PEDC is targeting the poorest and most disadvantaged communities.
• There is a strong Government commitment to sustainability with decisions setting up subcommittees to produce action plans in eight relevant areas.
• The construction program has consistently had problems throughout the project. The government has requested a one year extension to catch up and complete the program. The review team finds this a reasonable solution.
• A remaining issue is teaching multi-grade classes, which was considered to be an effective and efficient way of dealing with many small Vietnamese schools particularly in remote, rural areas. However, difficulty with teaching and managing multi-grade classes has been raised consistently during the life of this project. From monitoring visits it seems that teachers in multi-grade classes do not have the skills or methods to organize learning well. They report that the present methods do not make good use of the resources available and much student time is wasted.