Announcement of Four Million Eight Hundred Thousand US Dollars Loan to Malagasy Republic for Education on August 18, 1967

• 18.18 H STREET, N.W .. WASHINGTON 0. C. 20433 TELEPHONE: EXECUTIVE 3-6360 :I Bank Press Release No. 67/40 Subject: $4.8 million loan to Malagasy August 18, 1967 Republic for education The World Bank has approved a loan equivalent to $4.8 million to the Malagasy Republic to help finance the relocation and expansion of three secondary technical institutes and two teacher-training institutes in Tananarive, the capital. The ex- pansion will enable the combined enrollment of the schools to increase from 1,350 students to 3,110, and the concentration of the five schools on one site will make possible the sharing of various connnunal facilities. The project is of high prior- ity in Malagasy's general educational plan to increase enrollment, improve the quality of teachers, remedy the acute shortage of technically trained personnel, • and reduce its dependency on expatriate teachers and technicians • The Malagasy Republic, formerly Madagascar, is an island in the Indian Ocean, about 250 miles off the southeast coast of Africa. A major limitation to the ex- pansion of commerce and industry in the Republic is the shortage of trained man- power at the technician level. In a total population of 6 million, only 38,000 were classified as salaried skilled workers in a survey conducted by Unesco in 1963. The expansion of the three techn'5.cal institutes will make. possible signi- 1 ficant increases in the numbers of such middle··=level. personnel in engineering, building trades, surveying, office work,',hotel-keeping and domestic science. These institutes are the Lycee Technique du Genie. Civil which offers instruction in sur- veying, building construction, public works and sanitary engineering; the Lycee Technique Commercial which trains office workers for both the public and private sector; and Le College d'Enseignement Technique Feminin Commercial, Menager et \,{····. ' Hotelier which trains young women fo.,: careers in dressmaking, domestic science, 1;,~ \ I  - 2 - office work and hotel-keeping and the training of teachers for such courses (this school will now be oriented more toward business and cODUnercial studies). On pletion of the project, the enrollment in these schools will be more than doubled com- • to a total of nearly 2,600. The Malagasy education systei-n is now in the process of b~ing altered to con- form more closely to the particular needs of the country. One of the institutes to be relocated and expanded with Bank assistance is the Institut National Superieur de Recher.che et de Formation Pedagogiques. This Institut will be the focal poirit of all activities to Malagasize the existing educational system. It will revise the curricula, syllabi, teaching methods and textbooks, and at the same ti.me train Malagasy teachers who will staff the expanded school system and replace expatriate teachers. The second t·eacher-training institute involved is the Centre National d 1 Educateurs Populaires et Sportifs to provide qualified Malagasy physical educa- tion teachers. This will release French instructors of this course; they may be • replaced by oth~rs who will teach academic and technical subjects. The project being financed consists of the construction and equipping of aca- demic buildings for the five institutes on a new 36-acre campus together with com- munal facilitie$ including buildings for administration, assembly, dining and housing. Construction is scheduled for completion by the end of 1972 at a total estimated cost equivalent to $7.5 million. Most of the Bank loan of $4.8 million will be used to cover the foreign exchange req:uirements. The Malagasy Government will provide the remaining funds needed. The award of construction contracts and the procurement of equipment will be on the basis of international competitive bidding. A special project unit will be established to supervise execution of the project, headed by an experienced architect or engineer. The French Government is prepared to provide ~xpatriates to fill the technical teaching positions in the ine:titutes which cannot be filled by qualified Malagasies and will finance about two-thirds of their salaries, thus reducing the Malagasy Government's recurrent expenditures for maintaining the schools. Meanwhile a pro- gram for training Malagasy teachers of technical subjects, supported where necessary by scholarships for training overseas, will be initiated in order to reduce the dependence of the institutes on technical assistance programs for an adequate sup- ply of qualified teachers. The terms of the Bank loan provide for extended grace and repayment periods consistent with the economic position of the country. The loan will be for a • term of 30 years, including a ten-year grace period, with repayment beginning in April 1977. Interest will be at the rate of 61 per annum.