Philippines - Second Elementary Education Project

 Second elementary education project Report No: ; Type: Report/Evaluation Memorandum ; Country: Philippines; Region: East Asia And Pacific; Sector: Secondary Education; Major Sector: Education; ProjectID: P004565 PHILIPPINES: Second Elementary Education Project (Loan 3244-PH) The Philippines Second Elementary Education project, supported by Loan-3244-PH for US$200 million equivalent, was approved in FY91. The loan closed on June 30, 1996 after three one-year extensions, and US$25 million was canceled. The Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) of Japan provided cofinancing of US$145 million. The East Asia and Pacific Regional Office prepared the Implementation Completion Report (ICR), which includes the borrower’s report (annex B) but not the cofinancier’s report. The project was the second of three supporting elementary education. It aimed to increase the equity, efficiency, and quality of elementary education by assisting the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) subsector investment program and action plan for 1990–92. The project was ambitious in scope. It was to provide physical infrastructure (classrooms, desks, textbooks, instructional aids, and equipment) to disadvantaged areas; support in-service training and institutional development in planning and developing training programs, establish three pilot drop-out intervention programs (DIP) in schools for low-income students in six regions; finance a study of the cost-effectiveness of alternative prevention measures; expand a literacy training program; improve subsector planning and management through student assessments and a management information system that would support decentralized management at provincial level; review planning and budgeting; and develop an information dissemination system within DECS. When fiscal constraints grew more severe during project preparation, the loan was eventually approved with the rationale that it provided critical support for the government's regular education budget. In an extremely challenging political and economic period, most of the components were not completed as planned, or were only partly implemented. Only US$50 million (25 percent of the Bank loan) had been disbursed by the original closing date. The Bank authorized disbursements despite lack of progress on conditionalities. The ICR attributes the implementation problems, in part, to inadequate project management, coordination, monitoring, and, in part, to delays in counterpart funding. The project failed to increase the quality and equity of elementary education (the ICR does not explicitly comment on efficiency). While the construction of new classroom desks and toilet facilities (financed mostly by the OECF) far exceeded targets, classroom replacement and rehabilitation fell below expectations (ICR, appendix A, para. 6). A shortage of funds resulted in poor maintenance. The number of new textbooks also surpassed targets but the books were of poor quality. During the project, the DECS changed its distribution policies for desks and textbooks to the disadvantage of poorer communities, and the ICR was unable to determine what the schools had actually received. Only 25 percent of the in- service training was implemented. The management component was unfinished at loan closing and the student assessment system component was delayed and re-scheduled for completion by March 1997. The borrower’s report (ICR, annex B, para. 4.1) affirms that the donor financing provided regular budgetary support to the DECS without any significant incremental expenditures for DECS and that the government provided the funds regardless of its delayed drawdown of the loan. This latter point suggests that the Bank's financing was in fact not critical to support the DECS' programs. On the positive side, the components establishing the DIPs and literacy training were fully or partially completed. A Bank- directed evaluation study resulted from the DIP pilot. The project also produced a study on licensing standards for teachers that was used in the policy dialogue. The ICR is unsatisfactory. Its findings do not support the ratings of project outcome as satisfactory, institutional development as modest, sustainability as likely and Bank performance as satisfactory. All OED ratings are different from the ICR. On the basis of the evidence presented, OED rates the project’s outcome as unsatisfactory because the project failed to achieve most of the planned quality, equity, and efficiency objectives which made it of low relevance in the overall country context. It rates institutional development as negligible because the components to strengthen planning and management were not completed. OED considers sustainability unlikely because the government did not provide a plan and resources to operate and maintain the new and rehabilitated schools. The ICR does not present a plan for future operations and Bank performance is rated as unsatisfactory for two reasons: first, the project's quality at entry was low and second, the Bank did not use regular field monitoring or the remedies available in the loan agreement to keep the project on course. Although the ICR suggests that efficiency and effectiveness were enhanced because the resident mission and Bank headquarters shared supervision responsibilities, it cites only minor instances of the success of this joint undertaking. OED agrees with the lessons drawn in the ICR. The first is that project financing should be used to support project objectives and components rather than an overall subsector budget for infrastructure (which in this case absorbed 96 percent of the project’s costs). The second is that management, coordination and accounting systems need to be operational at loan effectiveness. The third lesson emphasizes that project monitoring and evaluation need to be continuous. Finally, this project underscores the importance of effective project design. While the project’s primary objective was to improve equity/coverage quality of elementary education, project design and implementation focused on physical goals, especially improving facilities and providing equipment, with a progressive shift away from the most disadvantaged areas. An audit is planned.