China - Basic Education in Poor and Minority Areas Project

Document of The World Bank FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Report No: 22449 IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETION REPORT (IDA-26510) ONA CREDIT IN THE AMOUNT OF SDR 69.2 MILLION TO THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA FOR A BASIC EDUCATION IN POOR AND MINORITY AREAS PROJECT June 30, 2001 This documnent has a restricted distribution and may be used by recipients only in the performance of their official duties. Its contents may not otherwise be disclosed without World Bank authorization.  CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS (Exchange Rate Effective ) Currency Unit = Chinese Yuan-RMBY RMB 100 = US$ 0.12 US$ = RMBY 8.3 FISCAL YEAR January I December 31 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS BEII = Basic Education II Project CEP = Chinese Experts Panel EMIS = Education Management Information System FELO = Foreign Investment and Loan Office IAG = Innovation Assessment Group METC= Minority Education Training Center MOE = Ministry Of Education MOF = Ministry of Finance NAEA = National Academy for Education Administration NYCE = Nine Year Compulsory Education SAR = Staff Appraisal Report SDR = Special Drawing Rights SEDC = State Education Commission WBOB = World Bank Office Beijing Vice President: Jemal-ud-din Kassum Country Manager/Director Yukon Huang Sector Manager/Director: Maureen Law Task Tea_ Leader/Task Manager: Halsey L. Beemer Jr.  FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY CHINA CN-BASIC EDUC IN POOR & MINORITY AREA II CONTENTS Page No. 1. Project Data 1 2. Principal Performance Ratings 1 3. Assessment of Development Objective and Design, and of Quality at Entry 2 4. Achievement of Objective and Outputs 3 5. Major Factors Affecting Implementation and Outcome 7 6. Sustainability 9 7. Bank and Borrower Performance 9 8. Lessons Learned 11 9. Partner Comments 12 10. Additional Information 13 Annex 1. Key Performance Indicators/Log Frame Matrix 14 Annex 2. Project Costs and Financing 15 Annex 3. Economic Costs and Benefits 18 Annex 4. Bank Inputs 19 Annex 5. Ratings for Achievement of Objectives/Outputs of Components 21 Annex 6. Ratings of Bank and Borrower Performance 22 Annex 7. List of Supporting Documents 23 This document has a restricted distribution and may be used by recipients only in the perforrnance of their official duties. Its contents may not otherwise be disclosed without World Bank authorization.   Project ID. P003636 Project Name: CN-BASIC EDUC IN POOR & MINORITY AREA 11 Team Leader: Halsey L. Beemer TL Unit: EASHD ICR Type: Core ICR Report Date: June 28, 2001 1. Project Data Name: CN-BASIC EDUC IN POOR & MINORITY AREA L/C/TF Number: IDA-26510 11 Country/Department: CHINA Region: East Asia and Pacific Region Sector/subsector: EP - Primary Education KEY DATES Original Revised/Actual PCD: 06/25/1993 Effective: 04/07/1995 04/07/1995 Appraisal: 03/18/1994 MTR: 09/30/1997 09/07/1997 Approval: 09/06/1994 Closing: 12/31/2000 12/31/0200 Borrower/Implementing Agency. PRC/Ministry of Education Other Partners: STAFF Current At Appraisal Vice President: Jemal-ud-din Kassum Gautarn S. Kaji Country Manager. Yukon Huang Nicholas C. Hope Sector Manager: Maureen Law Vinay K. Bhargava Team Leader at ICR: Halsey L. Beemer Halsey L. Beemer ICR Primary Author: Sandra F. Erb 2. Principal Performance Ratings (HS=Highly Satisfactory, S=Satisfactory, U=Unsatisfactory, HL=Highly Likely, L=Likely, UN=Unlikely, HUN=Highly Unlikely, HU=Highly Unsatisfactory, H=High, SU=Substantial, M=Modest, N=Negligible) Outcome: S Sustainability. L Institutional Development Impact: SU Bank Performance: S Borrower Performance. S QAG (if available) ICR Quality at Entry: S S Project at Risk at Any Time: No  3. Assessment of Development Objective and Design, and of Quality at Entry 3.1 Original Objective: Context. In 1994, when the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE) and the World Bank began identification and design work on what was to become the Basic Education in Poor and Minority Areas (Basic Education II or BEID Project, greatest priority was given to the achievement of universal basic education (UBE) as soon as it was practical in poor, remote and minority areas in order to support China's goal of development, modernization and elimination of illiteracy. This government priority drove both targeting and design issues and, after working with the Bank project development team, enabled the MOE to set the project objectives which were to: (a) support the attainment of universal primary education and the expansion of coverage of lower secondary education in poor and minority areas, and (b) build stronger institutions responsible for education delivery. These objectives reflected MOE policies to accelerate education decentralization by establishing broad principles to guide provincial and local governments in developing their county and village level education services, to implement the Compulsory Education Law using the resources available, and pursue their own educational targets, according to their own means. Important in this process was improving the targeting of education financing to the poorest populations in a province, increasing the efficiency of the use of these funds, and utilizing available intergovernmental transfer mechanisms to achieve these objectives. The objectives also fit squarely within Bank's Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) which gave attention to: (a) efficient resource use, including utilization of teachers and facilities; (b) more equitable funding mechanisms, targeted to basic education in poor rural areas; and (c) support for institution building to increase the capacity of education authorities at all levels to carry out their responsibilities within an increasing operational decentralizations. 3.2 Revised Objective: Not Applicable 3.3 Original Components: Component 1: Institutional Development Cost: US$ 127.0 million This component included facilities upgrading, improvement in instructional equipment within primary and junior secondary schools, and training of classroom teachers, school principals and local education administrators to provide better instruction in and leadership of the education institutions at the provincial, county and village levels. There was also a small nonnal school pilot activity in two provinces (and later two provinces and a municipality when Chongqing joined the project as it separated from Sichuan Province) to assist in rationalizing and strengthening normal school training of primary school teachers. Component 2. Management Improvement Cost: US$ 0.7 million The management improvement component was to develop management capabilities for the education system at the central, provincial, county and institutional levels through staff training, the provision of equipment and expert services. Training was provided to local education management authorities and local project implementation staff. There was also a provision for the development of an education information system. Component 3. Quality Enhancement Cost: US$ 2.6 million The quality enhancement component promoted innovations and other improvements in primary and lower secondary schools by supporting a program of self-generated improvement activities and the development - 2 -  of minority and bilingual book and textbook preparation, production, publication and distribution. This component also supported the development of the Minority Education Training Center (METC) of the National Academy of Education Administration (NAEA) which provided training activities and materials for minority county magistrates and education administrators, and the activities of the Chinese Experts Panel (CEP). The design of the three components was clearly linked to the objectives described above. The credit focused on the improvement of facilities to address access issues in poor and remote areas and training at all levels of the education systems in an effort to strengthen the institutions responsible for the delivery of education. In addition, the credit gave schools, county and provincial officials the opportunity to experiment with new ideas on ways to meet local educational needs related to enrolhnent, retention and quality improvement in the classroom. 3.4 Revised Components: Not applicable 3.5 Quality at Entry. Quality at entry, as assessed by the peer reviewers, was satisfactory based on (i) consistency of objectives with the priorities of the Ministry of Education (MOE); (ii) successful experience and lessons learned by the first basic education project which was being implemented at the time of project design; and (iii) demonstrated capacity of the Foreign Investment and Loan Office (FILO)/MOE to implement previous projects; and (iv) project design that was related to MOE decentralization policies and practices. 4. Achievement of Objective and Outputs 4.1 Outcome/achievement of objective: The achievement of objectives and physical outputs under the Basic Education in Poor and Minority Areas Project (BEII) project is satisfactory. The objectives were broad and flexible enough to allow provinces and counties to implement the Compulsory Education Law and to accelerate the completion at the county level of the government's Nine Year Compulsory Education (NYCE) program which was instituted early in the project's implementation period. All of this in accordance with their unique minority and regional characteristics and within the context of a rapidly decentralizing basic education system. In the end, the project enabled 105 of the 111 project counties (94 percent) to reach universal primary education and 57 (51 percent) to achieve nine-year compulsory education. The physical output targets for all provinces in primary, junior secondary and normal schools were met and in several cases exceeded. They showed robust improvements in safety of buildings, supply of teaching materials, enrollment of children, and qualifications of teachers and principals. Counterpart funding provision exceeded the SAR goal by 14 percent. The Innovation Program exceeded expectations in the quantity and quality of funded activities which sought to respond to issues and programs raised at local levels. The heavy poverty focus and the success in securing more than adequate counterpart funding of the project reportedly allowed for large numbers of poor children to enroll and stay in school during the severe drought periods in several project provinces in the northwest part of China when they would have not been able to in earlier years. The project helped minority education by the development and distribution of minority language textbooks and teaching materials, providing training for minority teachers and principals and national level training for minority county magistrates and education administrators. During the implementation of the project there was, however, a strong emphasis by the project provinces on investment inputs. Project design and then current Chinese policy for expanding education in poor rural - 3 -  areas placed heavy weight on increasing inputs which would help ensure increased access with less regard to educational outcomes. The borrower's strong reluctance at including any education outcome indicators is demonstrated by their absence in the project design for this project. This design weakness was noted during implementation and dealt with in the following two basic education projects, a benefit of having a sustained relationship with a borrower team in a particular sub-sector and a programmatic approach to project development which allowed for subsequent projects to build on the experiences and results of earlier projects. 4.2 Outputs by components: Institutional Component (US$ 127.0 million SAR, $ 232.5 million Actual) The overall rating for this component is satisfactory. This component was 97 percent of base costs and supported the following: (a) facilities upgrading; (b) instructional equipment, furniture and books; (c) staff upgrading, and (d) normal school pilot activity. Facilities Upgrading. Facilities upgrading was highly successful. In all provinces there was successful completion of the civil works portion of the project with all project provinces exceeding their original targets for new construction, rehabilitation and elimination of dangerous buildings. Civil works targets for repair of dangerous buildings and construction of new classrooms were exceeded by 21 percent. Site visits by Bank supervision missions and civil works specialists from the Chinese Experts Panel (CEP) showed that on average overall quality of construction was good to very good with little extra funds spent of decoration and substantial attention given to indigenous designs to deal with local climatic and physical conditions. The new buildings have provided adequate, safe and hospitable space for village children to attend school, and the parents, teachers and principals interviewed indicated that the new buildings encouraged children to attend and stay in school. Maintenance of the schools will be a an ongoing issue as maintenance budgets are limited. Poor communities have a difficult time collecting the necessary revenues to support ongoing maintenance, but a recently initiated National School Construction Fund will reportedly earmark funds for maintenance of these buildings and thus sustain the investments made by this project. Instructional equipment, furniture and books. This subcomponent is rated satisfactory. Prior to the BEII project, schools in the project areas had been seriously disadvantaged because there has been no investments in teaching equipment for 10 years. This project was able to provide 17,398 primary and lower secondary schools with MOE (fonTerly SEdC) standard equipment levels MOE classifies equipment needs ("Standard Levels") by school size, centrality and teacher training responsibility, conducts periodic survey to assess current levels and new procurement needs, and did, for this project identified specific requirements for project supported schools., 98.65 percent of the SAR target. Even though the schools have achieved great progress in meeting the MOE standards, the utilization rate of books and equipment needs to be increased. Science teachers and librarians have been trained but there is still reluctance on the part of principals and teachers to use the equipment and books for fear equipment will be broken and books lost or destroyed. These attitudes will need to be changed through continued principal and teacher training as well as assurance that adequate resources will be made available to the school principals to replace damaged materials. Staff Upgrading. This subcomponent is also rated satisfactory although there were weaknesses in design and delivery of these services. Teacher and education administrator training goals were exceeded by 40 and 33 percent respectively. Project indicators show that all the project provinces have experienced substantial increases - 118 percent on average above SAR targets - in the qualification rate of teachers which has meant a reduction in the number of minban teachers. Minban teachers are hired and paid by the local communities, generally village education committees, and generally do not have the years of formal education and training that government teachers do. The Ministry of Education, working closely with - 4 -  provincial education bureaus, has over the recent years upgraded the quality of the minban teachers by special training and other upgrading programs and have all but eliminated this type of teachers in the provinces supported by this project. Whereas numerical targets were met or surpassed, quality of the teacher training programs were a problem throughout the project. Training programs are generally set by formulae provided by the province which often follow the national standards and show little understanding of the deeper sense of innovative teacher behavior or teaching theories. School principals have little contact with the normal schools and colleges which provide the training. Normal schools and 2-3 year teachers colleges which are responsible for teacher training services are generally run by prefecture education bureaus and 4 year colleges by the province. Therefore horizontal linkages between the supply and demand of the services at the county or village level is lacking and training services often ill designed or poorly delivered. Cascade system of teacher training services demonstrate their inherent weaknesses in such cases, and efforts to overcome these weaknesses with the focus on normal schools was limited. The weak quality of teacher training programs became a primary focus of the Chinese Experts Panel (CEP) and it developed a Quality Assessment System for teacher training which was introduced throughout the provinces and municipality in the last two years of the project implementation. A research project has sent to the MOE by the CEP chairman to check the usefulness of the assessment instrument. Principal training also met or exceed targets. Principal training conducted at the national level was reported to have had a substantial impact on broadening the thinking and experience of rural school principals. Anecdotal evidence shows that school management was improved as a result of training. Normal School Pilot Activity. This subcomponent, carried out initially in Jiangxi and Sichuan Provinces and later Chongqing Municipality, is also rated satisfactory having been successfully completed both at the individual normal school levels. Marginal normal schools at the start of the project were elevated to first-rate normal school status by China's standards and this was attributed to the Bank credit as being a catalyst in that counterpart funds were committed more readily and in larger amounts. The schools leaped from have-not schools to relatively well-equipped ones in a few years. The normal schools benefited from the project in four ways. First, the completion of civil works has provided up-to-standard physical conditions for normal school teacher education. Second, the acquisition of facilities, e.g., procurement of computers, language and science laboratory equipment, musical instruments and library books, has significantly improved teaching and learning. Third, staff training has improved the quality of administrative, teaching and technical staff. Fourth, the staff has acquired new approaches to management from the World Bank and the MOE in the implementation process. Despite the improvement in teaching and learning brought about by the acquisition of facilities, less attention had been shown on the qualitative dimension of innovations in teaching, such as in the design of new teaching approaches or change in teacher behavior independent of technology. Management Improvement Component (US$ 0.7 million SAR, US$ 1.9 million actual) The overall rating of this component is satisfactory. This component was designed to develop management capabilities for the education system at the central, provincial and institutional levels through staff training and the development of Education Management Information Systems (EMIS). Project implementation training gave the local staff adequate skills to implement the project although some procurement and financial management training need to be repeated so as to better understand the overall Bank policies and procedures. Because of the improved capacity of the implementation staff, several project provinces will continue to use project implementation staff and offices for the implementation of the Chinese govemment's own Nine Year Compulsory Education Program - Phase Two (NYCE) as well as other provincial and county level poverty-alleviation focused activities both within and outside the education sector. - 5 -  In addition to project-supported training, the provincial implementation staff were trained through an IDF grant-supported Economics of Education Network (the Network) which provided them with knowledge on modem techniques and methods in education management and resource utilization. As a result of all of the training, provincial education managers are demonstrating a more thorough understanding of how better to manage their education finance systems. EMIS was organized in each province, region and municipality, equipment bought and installed and training was completed. It is evident from the increasingly improved statistical reporting provided the Bank during project implementation, that the equipment, software and training have had a strong impact on provincial project implementation. However, efficient means of using the data derived from the systems in the development of overall provincial education planning is not yet obvious. The Network developed training modules to assist provinces and counties in understanding how to utilize their educational data for planning and through continuous training will work on improving the understanding of these techniques and methods, but as has been demonstrated in earlier Bank-supported education projects, full, useful and sophisticated utilization of education statistics depends greatly on the needs for and uses made of this data by education administrators. Without the demand there is little use of EMIS equipment, software and training. Quality Enhancement Component. (US$ 2.6 million SAR, US$ 5.2 million actual) The overall rating for this component is satisfactory. This component was designed to promote innovations and other improvements in primary and lower secondary schools by supporting a program of self-generated improvement activities as well as support a national human resource capacity building programs and the training of minority county magistrates at the Minority Education Training Center, and the activities of the Chinese Experts Panel (CEP). Innovation Program. This sub-component is judged to be highly successful. The program, which was built on locally developed proposals, helped local leaders find solutions to many problems, from teacher training, to reducing the cost of education, from developing new models of school mapping schemes to attracting minority girls to school. The innovation grant process encouraged local educators to take an active role in diagnosing their own educational issues and finding their own solutions. In this respect the larger impact of the program may be that it helps to achieve a shift in organizational behavior toward more active and creative management at the local level. Provincial education implementation units reported that this component of the project was perhaps one of the most generative and creative elements of the project, allowing for the development of research capacity at local levels where it had never previously existed. Small amounts of funding were available to solve local issues such as developing and introducing into the curriculum training courses responsive to local economic needs, and persistent social issues such as low girls enrollments at the lower secondary school levels. The design of the Innovation Program could have included a better mechanism for the systematic review of the impact of the individual programs. There was also a need to include resources for the dissemination of experiences. The Innovations Assessment Group (IAG) provided excellent leadership through its encouragement of local managers to complete projects with the same spirit and attention to quality with which they began. However, the project design did not anticipate a strong evaluation role for the IAG and as a result the role of the IAG was not institutionalized to the same extent of the Chinese Experts Panel (CEP). Chinese Experts Panel. This sub-component is rated highly satisfactory. The Chinese Experts Panel (CEP) consisted of four educators who provided ongoing guidance and advice to MOE and the provinces on project implementation and policy issues related to the project. The CEP played an invaluable role in -6 -  project implementation by participating in semi-annual site visits as well as providing policy advice on such things as teacher education. After the CEP and Bank supervision mission found weaknesses in the teacher training programs, the CEP introduced a Training Quality Assessment System which sought to tie school needs with real training delivery. This initiative, and follow-on provided by the CEP in this area, provided better teacher training services by the end of the project and is still being used by the project provinces. Minority Education Training Center (METC). Implementation of investments in the Minority Education Training Center sub-component was satisfactory. The center constructed new building and organized seminars for county level education directors and primary and secondary school principals on education administration. The overall impact of this sub-component is difficult to judge although anecdotal evidence from those who have gone through the program and are from minority areas shows that county administrators and school principals were introduced to many new education management concepts. Perhaps the most important benefit of the training at the METC was the opportunity for principals to travel to Beijing and spend one week with principals and teachers in Beijing schools. This broadened the thinking of all the trainees and reportedly widened their horizons substantially. In addition, important linkages were made between the rural school principals and Beijing which continue to provide ongoing support for the rural school principals. Costs of participation in this program are significant in that minority counties tend to be the furthest from Beijing where the training is given, and transportation costs can be very high. Additionally, minority counties tend to be among the poorest of China's counties and the lest able to shoulder such costs. The METC should either consider taking the training to regional centers or providing travel subsidies. If these minority training programs are seen by the central government to be high national political and educational priority, the national government should more seriously consider underwriting some of the costs of the training, otherwise the minority county officials will find the programs expensive and activities on which it is not worth spending their local funds. 4.3 Net Present Value/Economic rate of return: Not Applicable 4.4 Financial rate of return: Not Applicable 4.5 Institutional development impact: The institutional development impact was satisfactory. 94 percent of the project-supported counties have been able to build their primary education systems so that they meet, and in some cases exceed, the MOE minimum services standards for delivery of education. This allowed project-supported counties to accelerate by as much as two years achieving universal primary education as defined by the Central government and was a project goal, and in 51 percent of the counties, Nine Year Compulsory Education (NYCE) which is now a national education goal. The establishment of the Minority Education Training Center now provides a continuing opportunity to train county level magistrates and education administrators in the special needs of minority populations in the poor parts of China. The Innovation Program as developed a research capacity at the county levels in several counties where it did not exist before. 5. Major Factors Affecting Implementation and Outcome 5.1 Factors outside the control of government or implementing agency: Currency fluctuation of the SDR reduced the overall level of funding available from the Credit. Although this did not have a negative impact on project implementation it did require additional counterpart money thereby placing additional burden on poor counties to cover the costs of the exchange rate losses. All counterpart funding targets were met or exceeded although as a disproportionately heavy burden on county - 7 -  finances as opposed to provincial or national finances. 5.2 Factors generally subject to government control: Project implementation went well with few problems encountered. Project management at all levels was strong and efficient. This can be seen by the fact at mid-term disbursements had reached 70 percent of the IDA funds and project indicators for other deliverables were substantially ahead of schedule. However, the process of by which the Ministry of Finance responded to reimbursement requests from counties could have been improved and the delivery of this service accelerated. Several counties during the life of the project were forced to borrow from commercial banks in order to cover expenses due to long lags in the reimbursement process. Poor counties have few resources and borrowing at short-term commercial rates offsets any potential benefit from an IDA credit. During the implementation of the project, the National Audit Bureau and the individual provincial audit departments improved their audit coverage providing both the MOE's national implementing unit and the Bank supervision teams with additional tools with which to monitor the financial flows of the project thus reducing the incidence of misuse of project funds and the periodic shortfalls in counterpart funding provision. The strengthening of the national and provincial audit system was an important element of the government's ongoing concern to inprove the quality of provincial and county level implementation of Bank-supported project. 5.3 Factors generally subject to implementing agency control: Strong commitment and efficient and good leadership with effective problem solving demonstrated by FILO provided the foundation for implementation to continuously exceed SAR targets with regard to human resource development, performance monitoring and project coordination. FILO has a long history of effective project implementation and was able to work with provinces and counties to institutionalize strong project management units. The Innovation Advisory Group (IAG) held workshops to provide guidance on proposal preparation, actively helped provinces design action research activities, and disseminated lessons learned. The Chinese Experts Panel (CEP) consistently added value to supervision in such areas as teacher training activities. 5.4 Costs andfinancing: Full disbursements of the total equivalent of the project's 69.2 million SDRs were made by the completion of the project. However, due to the fluctuations of the US Dollar exchange rate with the SDR during the project, the total US Dollars disbursed from the credit were US$ 97.5 million and not the US$ 100 million estimated at appraisal. The current project cost, US$ 243.5 million, is substantially higher than the SAR estimate of US$ 177.0 million and is a reflection of the high levels of counterpart funding which was made available during the implementation of the project. During project negotiations the MOE stipulated that the IDA:Government counterpart ratio would be 1:0.77 but once the onlending agreements were made between the MOF and the provinces, the ratio was increased by the government to 1:1. As is evident from the final project costs, this ratio was over-achieved by the MOE and the project provinces. Counterpart funding for project investments came from the province, prefecture and county and it is apparent that the lure of Bank financing was used to gather counterpart funding at levels far exceeding the goals set in project design documents. However, this has, in some case, been a substantial burden on village households as these funds are collected as part of the local education surcharge system. During project preparation efforts were made to increase the percentage of the locally provided counterparts funding which would come from the province while decreasing the amount which would come from the counties. Agreements were reached with the MOE and the provinces on this ratio of counterpart cost-sharing responsibility but in the end, these agreements proved difficult to manage, and a heavy burden - 8-  fell on the poor counties to fulfill counterpart target obligation. As these same provinces and counties will have to start repaying the IDA credit, and most likely from provincial and county education budgets, caution must be taken in the design of future poverty focused education projects to fully take not only the assumed counterpart obligations but also the future repayment responsibilities into account when calculating project sustainability. Supervision mission must carefully monitor the provision of counterpart funds in order that the burden does not become overbearing. 6. Sustainability 6.1 Rationale for sustainability rating: The provinces have recognized the need for continuing support of the project schools from the inception of the project by providing a yearly maintenance plan for civil works, equipment and teachers training. Future sustainability plans have been provided by each province as an annex to the borrower portion of the ICR. The project has demonstrated the usefulness of project development and implementation approach modeled after Bank methods for the support of the government's own nine-year compulsory education program. With participation of these provinces in later Bank-supported projects as well as the MOE National Nine Year Compulsory Education Project - Phase Two (2001-2006) and the National School Rehabilitation program, there is a high assurance that they will continue to support the project schools in the coming years. Due to the low population growth in China there will not be a rapid increase in the primary and lower secondary school enrollments; therefore more attention can be give to maintenance of the system rather than expansion of the system. Throughout the project implementation the provinces and counties proved their commitment to the project by giving their financial support and management support to all the project activities. However, new changes which have been pilot tested in Anhui province in the county level revenue system which is in the process of eliminating fees and education surcharges in favor of a comprehensive country-wide tax system may have a potential negative impact on education financing at the local level. This is being monitored carefully by the State Council, Ministry of Finance (MOF) and MOE so that appropriate adjustments in intergovernmental transfers, a system based largely on World Bank project design and policy advice, can be made so as to offset some of the negative impact of the new tax system. 6.2 Transition arrangement to regular operations: All project activities have been fully integrated into the regular operations of the provinces and counties. This project was designed to fit into the MOE's overall plans to achieve NYCE therefore, there is no need for special transition arrangements. The Government of China's (GOC) goals for achieving NYCE are well articulated and resources, both human and financial, have been allocated within the GOC to continue and expand their efforts. The GOC has just launched a 10 year program for the development of the " Westem Areas" and these project provinces and their educational needs fit squarely within the Western Areas Development Program. 7. Bank and Borrower Performance Bank 7.1 Lending: Bank lending in this sector, as well as AAA work, has covered all education sub-sectors and provided the foundation for ongoing policy dialogue and guidance for the whole sector. The Bank's focus on basic education, which has been programmatic in its coverage but project focused in its delivery, has been able to support incremental steps forward in reforming and improving education financing, poverty targeting, and the design of poverty focused projects. Working with the borrower on assessment of these issues has kept the Bank engaged in this sub-sector where the borrower has said that project financing is less important -9-  than access, at the provincial level, to new ideas and relevant international experience. Bank lending has also provided incremental additional funding for the challenges of increasing educational access for poor and minority children in the poorest parts of China were the costs for providing that access is high and availability of local funds, especially at the county level, problematic. 7.2 Supervision: Bank supervision has been robust, focused and diligent, identifying and resolving educational as well as financial management and procurement problems. Cluster supervision of parties of currently implementing basic education projects and heavy use of WBOB staff has brought both efficiencies and synergies to the supervision process. The mission's heavy reliance on county and provincial audit materials and reports augmented the supervision process in a way that strengthened the local government's own responsibility for managing and implementing these projects. 7.3 Overall Bankperformance: The Bank's overall perfonnance was satisfactory. In lending activities, comprehensive teams were fielded with many members maintained throughout supervision. Supervision missions included the required expertise and local staff monitored project activities when necessary. Borrower 7.4 Preparation: The Department of Finance of MOE coordinated with the Provincial, Municipal and County Education Bureaus to carefully develop proposals and collect the necessary data and information for project preparation. They also fielded a comprehensive team of Chinese experts that comprised educators and previous Bank project implementation expertise so assist in the development of the project. These individuals continued to provide advise to MOE during implementation as members of the Chinese Experts Panel. Government of China goals for this project were clearly articulated from the start and consistently supported by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, the State Planning (and Development) Commission and all the provincial and county units with which the preparation team worked. 7.5 Government implementation performance: The overall government implementation performance was highly satisfactory. The Government of China, at both the national and provincial levels, has 20 years experience with implementation of Bank-support education projects. GOC at all levels within MOF and MOE have established institutions that understand the intricacies of Bank-supported projects which facilitates the smooth implementation of education projects. The borrower also provided the necessary counterpart funds, often in excess of SAR targets, to complete all project-supported activities. Of special note is the proactive way in which the MOE, working in consort with the MOF and the State Audit Bureau, identified and took corrective action when it became evident that case of misuse of project funds were discovered. The flow of reimbursements through the finance bureaus at the provincial and county level could have been quicker. This would have eliminated the need for poor counties to borrow at commercial rates to pay for outstanding contractual commitments. It is interesting to note that the MOE, during project implementation, worked with the Ministry of Finance to develop an intergovernmental transfer system which provided central education budget funds directly to targeted poor counties. In so doing, the MOE and MOF took the model of the World Bank's project design, development and implementation and applied it to the design of their own poverty focused education fund, requiring counties and provinces to prepare project proposals which included education and financing targets, monitorable indicators and annual review of action plans and budgets. This unintended transfer of project development models from the World Bank remains in place and has been expanded to an additional central intergovernmental transfer program, started in 2001, which deals specifically with school repair and - 10 -  construction in poor areas. 7.6 Implementing Agency: The overall performance of the implementing agency was highly successful. The implanting agency at the center - the MOE's Foreign Investment and Loan Office (FILO) and their partners at the provincial level - the Provincial World Bank Project Implementation Units - provided consistently good direction and support for the implementation of the project. FILO organized and ran, with help from the World Bank Office Beijing (WBOB) staff, a number of provincial level training programs for procurement and financial management. Several of these training programns had to be repeated because of staff changes in the provincial level implementing units. FILO worked closely with the WBOB and the Task Team Leader to develop and implement a prior review system of procurement which was highly successful and produced a virtually flawless procurement process with no mis-procurements. Likewise, working closely with the WBOB staff and the TTL and the State Audit Bureau, FILO was able to monitor closely the flows of project financing and ensure that cases of misuse of project funds were quickly and successfully dealt with. FILO's monitoring of the counterpart provision was persistent and ongoing with good results. FILO worked with the Bank missions on resolving one of the project's most difficult problems, establishing the correct strategic direction for the restructuring of the three project provinces normal schools. This latter effort needed the sustained attention of the FILO task manager, working closely with the CEP to recommend solutions and then organizing a nomnal school principal's workshop to strengthen the direction of that component. Toward the end of the project the direct and personal involvement of the FILO Deputy Director in the supervision of the project was a welcome addition in that it helped sustain provincial attention on the need to maintain implementation rigor up until the final days of the project. All in all, the service of the implementing agency was excellent. 7.7 Overall Borrower performance: The borrower's overall performance was satisfactory. In line with a good record in designing, preparing and implementing the IDA assisted education project, the MOE demonstrated satisfactory performance in preparing and implementing this project. 8. Lessons Learned o Poverty focused social service delivery projects should be increasingly targeted at the township rather than the county level. With more than half of China's absolute poor living outside the 592 nationally designated counties, targeting at the poor township level will more effectively include larger percentages of the absolute poor. However, in that townships lack the adequate administrative capacity to manage such poverty targeted projects, the counties should be given chief administrative responsibility for such projects. * As provinces and counties which have benefited from IDA and IBRD financing have to repay the credits or loans, and most likely from provincial and county education budgets, caution must be taken in the design of future poverty focused education projects to fully take into consideration not only the assumed counterpart obligations but also the future repayment responsibilities into account when calculating project sustainability. * The key issue in developing education projects at the provincial, county and township levels is to convince the Chinese preparation teams that focusing on development outcomes is more important then emphasis on investment inputs. - 11 -  * Educational outcomes from a project such as this cannot be measured without good outcome indicators, and project preparation teams must be diligent in working with the borrower to obtain agreement on these outcome indicators during the earliest stages of project design. * Establishing experts panels with a broad range of educational skills from the start of the targeting exercise ensures the project of some balance in educational, financial and staffing needs. These panels are useful in reviewing provincial proposals, supervising the implementation of projects, assessing progress at mid term and with the final completion reports. Responsible to the provincial and/or national education authorities, they can be used to do studies which can change the direction of projects under implementation, give added emphasis to an element and provide technical advice to county and school level educators. * Teacher and staff training components have been chronically weak in Bank supported basic education projects. Training programs are generally set but formulae provided by the province which often follow the national standards. School principals have little contact with the normal schools and colleges which provide the training. Normal schools. have few horizontal links with the counties and villages where the of the services comes from. This should be considered carefully in the development of an new project. * Much of project design for the National Nine Year Compulsory Education Programs, which is the joint work of the MOF and the MOE Finance Department, appears to be driven by prospective formulae from Beijing which must be carefully understood. Some is positive and useful (i.e., only poor counties get money, provincial proposals have to be presented, reviewed and approved, etc.) but some can be regressive and difficult to deal with (i.e., set numbers of square meters of contraction per students regardless of geographic location, overly generous numbers of laboratories in a school which hinders efficiencies, etc.). These guidelines from Beijing often drive up capital costs and limit local abilities to increase efficiencies. * Language of instruction issues in minority language areas are important and the answers as to which system to be used (and thereby supported by a project) are not always self evident. Social surveys are one way to get to the bottom of this issue; talking with parents and grandparents is important. 9. Partner Comments (a) Borrower/implementing agency: All project components were accomplished and satisfactory. The implementation of the project greatly improved the school conditions and teaching quality in poor and minority areas, which played an important role in the acceleration of the universalization of nine-year of elementary compulsory education in poor areas. The project was implemented smoothly during the implementation period and the implementation quality was good generally. All project output targets were met and some exceeded. The Foreign Investment and Loan Office (FILO/MOE) strengthened national level management training early in the project, in which FILO invited staff from the Education Development in Poor Provinces Project to introduce their experiences and lessons on project implementation. FILO also provided a lot of guidance to the project provinces procurement of civil works and good. FILO fulfilled its task in project supervision, provided guidance to project units and coordination with departments concerned. FILO/MOE have very good cooperation with the Bank in implementation period. From the beginning of the project, the task manager on the World Bank and Bank consultants paid much attention to the quality of the project. They provided lots of valuable suggestions during site visits to the project provinces and helped provinces solve problems which appeared in the implementation period which guarantee the smooth implementation of the - 12-  project. (b) Cofinanciers: Not Applicable (c) Otherpartners (NGOs/private sector): Not Applicable 10. Additional Information - 13-  Annex 1. Key Performance Indicators/Log Frame Matrix Outcome I Impact Indicators: 1. Number and percentage of dangerous 80.0002.0% 70,000/1.75% teaching and dormitory areas in square meters : 2. Number and percentage of schools 15,924 - 95% 16.476 - 98.29% achieving appropriate SEdC equipmert standards: 3. Net enrollment rate of girs at first grade: 94.5% 96% 4. Percentage repetition of first grade. 12.0 9.0 5. Net completion ratio of students from 94.0 96.0 grades one and two of projed primary schools: 6. Net competion ratio of girls from grades 92.0 94.0 one and two of project primary schoo*: 7. Net completion rate of primary school of 85.0 85.0 15 year olds: 8. Transition rate into lower middle schools: 65.0 75.0 9. Transition rate of girts/ninorities into 60.0 70.0 lower middle schools: 10. Studert teacher ratio: 23.0 23.0 11. Number and percentage of qualified 27,445 -105 % 30,921 -118.3% teachers: 12. Number and percentage of teachers who 49.725 -100% 51,706 -104.0% received continuing education: 13. Nunber and percentage of teachers who 5.128 -100% 5,695 -111.1% received bilingual training: 14. Number and percentage of pdncipals 11.237 -120% 15,301 -163A% who received training- 15. Number of students receiving free 13,710 20,000 textbooks: This project was developed prior to the new log frame indicator format therefore, the indicators listed above are output indicators rather than outcome or impact in nature. No overall project indicators were developed at the beginning of implementation, just indicators to measure individual provincial educational progress. Therefore, project indicators provided above and marked with (*) are indicative of only one project province, Guangxi and they are only for primary schools. There are indicators for junior secondary schools as well as Normal Schools for Sichuan and Jiangxi province. Those indicators without the (*) are from the Borrower ICR and are numerical tabulations, where appropriate and useful, of the all the provinces' indicators combined. Other individual provincial indicators can be found in the Borrower ICR subnitted December 2000. Output Indicators: End of project - 14 -  Annex 2. Project Costs and Financing Project Cost by Component (in US$ million equivalent) Appraisal ActuallLatest Percentage of Estimate Estinate Appraisal Project Cost By Component US$ million US$ million A. Institutional Component 1. Facilities Upgrading 91048.30 173321.04 190 2. Instruction Equipment/Books/Furniture 25291.80 49054.37 194 3. Staff Development 10678.10 15484.77 146 B. Management Improvement Component 1. Management Training 315.90 731.88 232 2. Education Management Information System 400.00 453.35 113 C. Quality Enhancement Component 1. Innovations 1570.90 2393.67 159 2. National Capacity Building 1000.00 2038.20 204 Total Baseline Cost 130305.00 243477.28 Physical Contingencies 9426.70 Price Contingencies 37294.60 Total Project Costs 177026.30 243477.28 Total Financing Required 177026.30 ._______________ _______________ _______________ ___________ 243477.28 - 15-  Project Costs by Procurement Arrangements (Appraisal Estimate) (US$ million equivalent) Procurement Metlhod,~ Exeprendture; Ctegory C NCB 2 tN.F. i Total Cost ____:_______ _N S " Other 1. Works 0.00 108.00 24.00 0.00 132.00 (0.00) (54.00) (11.40) (0.00) (65.40 2. Goods 0.00 25.40 5.70 0.00 31.10 (0.00) (19.40) (4.90) (0.00) (24.30) 3. Services 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) 4. Technical Assistance 0.00 0.00 11.80 0.00 11.80 (0.00) (0.00) (8.20) (0.00) (8.20) 5. Innovations/National 0.00 0.00 2.10 0.00 2.10 Capacity Building (0.00) (0.00) (2.10) (0.00) (2.10) 6. Miscellaneous 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) Total 0.00 133.40 43.60 0.00 177.00 (0.00) (73.40) (26.60) (0.00) (100.00) Project Costs by Procurement Arrangements (Actual/Latest Estimate) (US$ million equivalent) T ~~Procureet Mthd Expenditure cat-goiy ICB Ohe N8.F. Total Cost:t 1. Works 0.00 147.32 26.00 0.00 173.32 (0.00) (56.93) (10.17) (0.00) (67.10) 2. Goods 0.00 44.55 4.96 0.00 49.51 (0.00) (20.43) (1.79) (0.00) (22.22) 3. Services 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) 4. Technical Assistance 0.00 0.00 18.25 0.00 18.25 (0.00) (0.00) (6.11) (0.00) (6.11) 5. InnovationslNational 0.00 0.00 2.39 0.00 2.39 Capacity Building (0.00) (0.00) (2.07) (0.00) (2.07) 6. Miscellaneous 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) Total 0.00 191.87 51.60 0.00 243.47 (0.00) (77.36) (20.14) (0.00) (97.50) Figures in parenthesis are the amounts to be financed by the Bank Loan. All costs include contingencies. 2'Includes civil works and goods to be procured through national shopping, consulting services, services of contracted staff of the project management office, training, technical assistance services, and incremental operating costs related to (i) managing the project, and (ii) re-lending project funds to local government units. - 16 -  Project Financing by Component (in US$ million equivalent) Perce-ftage of Appraisal Componen- Appraisal Estimate Actual/Latest Estimate ___________ Bank Govt. CoF. Bank Govt. CoF. ank Govt_ CoF. Government of China 77.00 145.60 0.00 189.1 IDA 100.00 0.00 97.90 97.9 0.0 The actual IDA disbursement level is less than the original US$100 million due to the SDR/US$ currency fluctuations. In addition, the Basic Education in Poor and Minorities Area Project only calculated overall project financing. It did not record project financing by component because the project was prepared prior to this requirement - 17 -  Annex 3. Economic Costs and Benefits Not Applicable -18 -  Annex 4. Bank Inputs (a) Missions: Stage of Project Cycle No. of Persons and Specialty Performance Rating (e.g. 2 Economists, I FMS, etc.) Implementation Development MondtYear Count Specialty Progress Objective Identification/Preparation 9/93 4 2 Educators, I HR Economist, I S S Textbook Specialist 1/94 7 4 Educators, 1 HR Economist, 1 S S TA specialist, 1 Civil Engineer/Procurement Appraisal/Negotiation 3/94 -Appraisal 5 2 Educators, 1 HR S S Economist, 1 TA Specialist, 1 Operations Officer 7/94 -Negotiation 5 1 Task Manager, 1 Lawyer, 1 S S Disbursement Officer, I TA Specialist, I Operations Officer Supervision 10/99 6 3 Educators, I Operations S S Officer, 1 Procurement, 1 FMS 5/99 3 2 Educators, 1 Procurement S S 1/99 1 1 Operations S S 8/98 2 1 Educator, 1 Procurement S S 9/97 Mid-term 6 3 Educators, I Operations S S Officer, 2 Procurement 3-4/97 2 1 Educator, 1 Operations Officer S S 1/97 3 1 Educator, I Operations Officer, S S I Procurement 3/96 3 2 Educator, 1 Teacher Training S S Specialist, 1 Operations Officer 11/95 6 1 Educator, I Project Analyst, 1 O i Operations Specialists, 1 FMS, 2 Procurement 9/94 Launch 7 2 Educators, 1 HR Economist, 2 5 S Operations Officers, i Disbursement, I Procurement ICR 6/01 3 1 Educator, I Operations S S Officer, I Teacher Trainer - 19-  (b) Staff: i Stage of Project Cyclc Actual/Latest Estimate No. Staff weeks US$ ('000) Identification/Preparation 50 280.0 Appraisal/Negotiation 34 140.0 Supervision 120 340.0 ICR 6 30.0 Total 210 790.0 These figures are estirates based on the project preparation file information, supervision aide-memoires, 590 forms and staff salary information that is available. - 20 -  Annex 5. Ratings for Achievement of Objectives/Outputs of Components (H=High, SU=Substantial, M=Modest, N=Negligible, NA=Not Applicable) Rating LI Macro policies O H *SUOM O N O NA ai Sector Policies O H * SU O M O N O NA 0 Physical O H * SU O M O N O NA O Financial O H *SUOM O N O NA L Institutional Development 0 H * SU O M 0 N 0 NA LEnvironmental O H OSUOM O N * NA Social El Poverty Reduction O H *SUOM O N O NA O Gender OH *SUOM ON ONA El Other (Please specify) O H OSUOM O N O NA Li Private sector development 0 H O SU O M 0 N 0 NA El Public sector management 0 H O SU O M 0 N 0 NA O Other (Please specify) O H OSUOM ON O NA - 21 -  Annex 6. Ratings of Bank and Borrower Performance (HS=Highly Satisfactory, S=Satisfactory, U=Unsatisfactory, HU=Highly Unsatisfactory) 6.1 Bankperformance Rating O Lending OHS OS OU OHU O Supervision OHS OS OU OHU O Overall OHS OS O U O HU 6.2 Borrowerperformance Rating LI Preparation OHS OS O u O HU LI Government implementation performance O HS OS 0 U 0 HU 0 Implementation agency performance O HS OS 0 U 0 HU O Overall OHS OS OU O HU - 22 -  Annex 7. List of Supporting Documents Borrower Project Implementation Completion Report including full Annexes ICR Mission Consultants Report. - 23 -  CHINA BASIC EDUCATION IN POOR AND MINORITY AREAS PROJECT (Cr.2651-CHA) PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETION REPORT Projects Division Foreign Investment & Loan Office Ministry of Education People's Republic of China December 2000 - 24 -  CHINA BASIC EDUCATION IN POOR AND MINORITY AREAS PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETION REPORT CONTENTS A. Project Overview B. Project Implementation (a) Disbursements/Reimbursements (b) Indicators (c) Civil Works (d) Equipment and Books (e) Furniture (f) Training Program (g) Management Information System (h) Normal School Program (i) Innovation Program (j) Chinese Experts Panel (k) Minority Education Training Center C. Main Issues and Recommendations D. Project Sustainability Plan E. Data Forms Annex 1 Counterpart Funds Expenditure Annex 2 Credit Funds Expenditure Annex 3 Civil Works Progress Annex 4 Procurement Progress of Equipment Annex 5 Procurement of Furniture Annex 6 Procurement of Books Annex 7 Progress of Technical Assistance Annex 8 Progress of Project indicators Annex 9 Sustainability Plan Annex: Project Implementation Completion Reports of Six Provinces and One Municipality - 25 -  CHINA BASIC EDUCATION IN POOR AND MINORITY AREAS PROJECT (Cr.2651-CHA) IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETION REPORT A. PROJECT OVERVIEW The Credit Agreement of the above project, signed by the World Bank and the Chinese Government on November 8, 1994, became effective on April 7, 1995. The project is completed by December 31, 1999 (on time), with a Closing Date of December 31, 2000. Total project costs are estimated at about US$222 million equivalent. The World Bank provides SDR69.2 million (US$100 million equivalent) for the project and the Chinese Government promised to provide RMBY1.06 billion (US$122 million equivalent) counterpart funds. The principal goal of this project is to support the attainment of universal primary education and the expansion of coverage of lower secondary education in poor and minority areas. This would be achieved by: (a) improving the quality and effectiveness of educational inputs to teaching points, primary schools, lower secondary schools and rural normal schools in poor and minority areas; (b) improving management of schools at the primary, lower secondary and normal schools levels as well as the educational system at all levels; and (c) facilitating innovative programs. The beneficiaries of the project include: (a) 111 project counties of six provinces and autonomous regions as well as one municipality which are Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia and Chongqing; (b) 21 normal schools of Jiangxi, Sichuan and Chongqing; (c) National Academy of Education Administration affiliated with the Ministry of Education. The number of project provinces and regions has grown from six to six and one municipality, Chongqing since Chongqing became a full self-administering municipality directly under the State Council in April, 1997. By the end of 1997, Chongqing had completed all the procedures in the transferring of the related matters on the above project from Sichuan. B. PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION Overall Status Based on the progress reports submitted by project provinces, virtually all input indicators are running well ahead of project targets and all project goals are fully achieved. Five years into the project implementation greatly improved the school conditions and accelerated the universalization of nine-year compulsory education in poor and minority areas. According to the reimbursement data provided by the Ministry of Finance, as of the end July 2000, the disbursed amount by project provinces is SDR69.24 million, accounting for 100.0 percent of total credit 69.20 million. Counterpart funds accumulation, allocation and utilization is running at 114.25 - 26 -  percent of total project target. The Chinese Experts Panel (CEP) made substantial intellectual contributions especially in the education quality aspects of the project. The Innovation Assessment Group (IAG) played an important role in the review and approval of the innovation proposals of provinces as well as providing guidance for provinces to prepare for the proposals. The World Bank's supervision missions made lots of valuable recommendations and contributed to the success of the project impiementation in the past five years. As of June 30, 2000, all project provinces had exceeded the total planned construction square meters in the planned number of schools and all equipment and books procured have been delivered to project schools and in use. Xinjiang, moving at a somewhat slower pace in the first three years, accelerated its project implementation speed in the last two years and completed its project targets so far. Provincial management training and teachers training had surpassed their targets by 39.8% and 33.3% respectively. Minority Education Training Center affiliated with National Academy of Education Administration (NAEA) had completed its civil construction and equipment procurement early in 1997. Disbursements/Reimbursements The provinces reported that by the end June 2000, RMBY1.21 billion counterpart finds had been collected, allocated and utilized, making up 114.25% of the total plan. The collection of individual range from 99.05% for Jinagxi to 165.73% for Chongqing. As the reimbursement are partially dependant on the current US dollar exchange rate of the SDRs, 69.2 million SDR was equivalent to US$ 100 million at project preparation period. But now its equivalence is less than 100 million US dollar. All planned SDRs had been reimbursed so far. US$97.49 million had been disbursed for all provinces by June 30, 2000, maling up 97.50% of the total planned US dollar. The individual level of credit (US dollar) disbursement ranged from 95.38% for Xinjiang to 98.66% for Inner Mongolia. The following is SDR data on the overall disbursements by project provinces as of July 31, 2000 which is provided by Ministry of Finance. Provinces Disbursed SDRs Percent Disbursed Guangxi 13,346,895.32 99.42 Jiangxi 12,095,820.79 98.75 inner Mongolia 12,128,518.99 99.58 Ningxia 3,595,277.09 99.91 Xinjiang 13,539,717.41 100.34 Sichuan 11,202,467.73 100.95 Chongqing 2,432,825.39 98.64 NAEA 904,839.08 130.76 Total 69,246,361.80 100.07 Indicators - 27 -  Based on the data provided by project provinces, virtually all project efficiency indicators' targets have been achieved or exceeded, and the indicators show substantial progress since 1992. Especially impressive are the girls enrolment rates( both in primary and lower secondary schools), transition rate from primary to lower secondary schools which have improved substantially. Through the procurement for civil works, equipment and books, percentage of dangerous buildings decreased and equipment percentage achieving Ministry of Education(MOE) standard increased in all project provinces. Training program improved the percentage of qualified teachers greatly. Civil Works Under this project, all project county Foreign Investment and Loan Offices (FILOs) procured all the civil works through National Competitive Bidding (NCB) and National Shopping. The procurement for civil works has been carried out quickly. All the project provinces (including Chongqing) had completed more than 100% of the planned target in the first four years. By the end June 2000, 98.91% of the total planned credit(US dollar) of this part had been disbursed and 128.06% of the planned counterpart funds had been collected and utilized for six project provinces and Chongqing municipality. All provinces have over reached total target by 21% in terms of square meters by June 30, 2000. 5,110,623 square meters had been completed in either new construction or extension & rehabilitation or repairs, making up 121.61% of the total of civil works target for the six provinces and one municipality. 1,684,970 square meters, making up 126.96% of planned new construction areas had been completed by the provinces. 1,459,317 square meters, representing 112.87% of planned extension & rehabilitation areas had been completed, and 124.77% of planned repairs areas had been completed. The quality-monitor station at the county level sent special staff to the field to monitor the quality of construction when the building was being constructed, and the county level project officers often went to the construction field to ensure the quality of the buildings. The final acceptance for civil works has been jointly done by the county construction quality inspection station, construction commission and education commission. During site visits by FILO/MOE, CEP and Bank missions, quality of the construction showed good in all provinces. Teachers and student families were satisfied with the school buildings. It seems that the maintenance of the school building is always a problem. In the sustainability plan for the next five years, each province promised to allocate a certain money for civil works maintenance in order that the investment will continue to provide economic and efficient buildings well into the next century. EquiDiment and Books Under this project, equipment and books were procured by provincial FILOs through NCB and then distributed to counties and schools. By the end June 2000, all the provinces had completed their procurement for equipment and books. Xinjiang which moved slowly in the - 28 -  procurement in the first three years speeded up and completed its equipment and books procurement in 1999. The Bank's Procurement Guidelines and Procedures have been followed strictly and procurement methods have been used by all provinces. As of the end June 2000, US$13.26 million, making up 96.35% of credit funds had been disbursed for equipment for all the provinces. RMBY101.02 million, making up 91.47% of counterpart funds had been expended. All equipment covered 16,476 primary and lower secondary schools, representing 98.29% of the total planned number of schools. In terms of books procurement, as of the end June 2000, US$5.83 million, accounting for 98.08% of the total planned credit had been disbursed by all provinces. RMBY76.04 million, accounting for 80.52% of planned counterpart funds had been expended. 28,480,289 copies of books, making up 105.82% of planned copies, had been distributed to 27,129 primary and lower secondary schools, which represented 105.28% of planned number of schools. Furniture Furniture are also procured by project county FILOs through NCB and National Shopping. By June 30, 2000, RMBY46.18 million, making up 107.23% of the total planned counterpart funds had been expended by all provinces. US$2.86 million, making up 102.01% of planned credit had been disbursed. 966,461 sets of furniture, making up 107.53% of planned sets, had been distributed to 17,398 primary and lower secondary schools, accounting for 98.65% of planned number of schools. Trainine Proerams National Level Workshops All planned national level training workshops or seminars had been conducted by the end of 1998. The table below summarizes the details. Type of Trainine No. Of Trainees (1) Civil Works Management (1) 109 (2) Civil Works Management (I) 102 (3) Civil Works Procurement 35 (4) Equipment Procurement(l) 6 (5) Equipment Procurement (Il) 6 (6) Project Management (1) 12 (7) Middle School Principals 48 (8) Vocational Education in Minority areas 25 (9) Supervision and Evaluation on Basic Education 60 (I O)Project Management (II) 112 (1 l)Finance Management 12 (12)Primary Schools Principals 52 (13)County Education Bureau Directors 82 (1 4)Librarian Training (1) 42 - 29 -  (1 5)Librarian Training (11) 53 (16)Teaching Methodology of Science Subjects 32 (I 7)Multi-function School Experiment 34 (18)Normal School Principals Training 23 (19)Bilingual Teaching ninovation 23 (20) County Magistrate 87 (21) Education Resource Allocation 42 Total 997 Since some project counties did not attend the county magistrate workshop held in 1998. Another same content workshop was held in May 1999 for those counties who were absent from the first workshop. Provincial Level Training In addition to the national level workshops, each project province held management related workshops in such areas as civil works management, MIS, project management, equipment procurement, project audit and finance management. The implementation progress for management staff training is quite good and training activities are ahead of project target. By the end June 2000, training has been conducted for 5,482 person times in the above various training categories, accounting for 139.8% of the total planned number. In terms of provincial teachers training, as of the end June 2000, 174,165 person times of teachers had taken part in short-term and long-term training programs to upgrade their academic qualifications, speciality certificate, multigrade teaching, lab. management and teaching, bilingual teaching, library management, continuing education and for principals skill and management, which represented 133.3% of planned number. Principal training had been given great importance by all provinces and had surpassed the overall project target by 63.4%. However, the progress is uneven in terms of quantity by provinces. Training of multigrade teacher in Inner Mongolia only completed 83.3% of its total target. During site visits, teachers were pleased generally with the training they had received. As of the end June 2000, RMBY72.73 million counterpart funds had been utilized by all provinces of this part, representing 95.11% of the total planned. US$5.84 million credit had been disbursed, making up 93.49% of project planned. Study Tours Six study tours have been finished in the project implementation period including: (1) Education Evaluation to the United States (2) Education Evaluation to Australia (3) Equipment Utilization to Australia (4) Girls Education, Bilingual Teaching and Basic Education to Australia (5) Distribution and Optimization of Educational Resources to France (6) Project Management Training in the United States. - 30 -  All tour groups wrote and submitted reports on their visits. Management Information System (MIS) The project supports establishing an Education Management Information System (EMIS) in the autonomous region and project county level of Xinjiang and Ningxia. This componernt includes MIS equipment procurement and operators training programs. All equipment has been procured and staff were also trained by Xinjiang and Ningxia early in 1998. At county level, MIS equipment has been widely used in project implementation management and in macro- management on educational infonnation. Normal School Program The project supports Jiangxi, Sichuan and Chongqing in rationalizing and strengthening 21 normal schools. This is mainly focused on increasing the quality and relevance of nornal school teacher training. By June 30, 2000, 91.57% of credit funds had been disbursed for Jiangxi, 97.79% for Sichuan and 98.94% for Chongqing. More than 100% of counterpart funds had been expended for Jiangxi, Sichuan and Chongqing. Normal school equipment and books were procured together with the basic education component through NCB. By the end of 1998, all equipment and books had been procured and delivered to project schools. Training activities for normal school teachers and managers have been completed. Through the implementation of the project, the experiment offering rate, lab opening rate and percentage of teachers having bachelor degree increased in all project normal schools, and all project schools improved their capability in training the future primary school teachers. The Normal School Principle Training Program The leadership role of the principles of the normal schools is critically important to a successful educational school. They are managers of human, material and financial resources, as well as intellectual, social and curricular leaders. Based on such environment, the World Bank mission, after its site visits to the project nornal schools, recommended a training program for project supported normal school principles which will provide them with the long-range planning tools necessary. The CEP, based on the recommendations made by the Bank mission, organized a training workshop for all the project normal school principals in July 1997. The workshop gave the principals management training and assisted them in developing a year long action plan for the management of their schools. Innovation Proeram The agreement between the Innovation Assessment Group (IAG) and the six project provinces, approved by the World Bank, was signed in 1995. The goal of the innovation program was to involve local authorities in the search for creative solutions to problem of universalizing - 31 -  basic education and improving the quality and relevance of education. The provinces reported that the program were implemented well and smoothly with 89.5% of budgeted funds for this category spent on the innovation programs. In the past five years, 86+4 innovation programs with the total amount of US$1,073,935 were approved by the World Bank and carried out by project provinces in six broad thematic areas including: (1) improving bilingual education, (2) universalizing basic education, (3) developing new curriculum, (4) experimenting with vocational and technical education, (5)improving research, and development capacity, and (6) minority textbooks. Among 86+4 programs, 12+1 for Guangxi, 9+1 for Xinjiang, 19 for Ningxia, 18+1 for Inner Mongolia, 18 for Jiangxi and 10+1 for Sichuan province. Some of the innovation programs have produced good results. For example, hand-in-hand program in Ningxia improved the management capability and teaching quality of principles and teachers in mountain areas. Work study program, also in Ningxia, not only provided opportunity for the students to learn labour skill, but also provided funds for those poor family students. In June 1999, IAG issued notice to project provinces informing them to carry out summary and acceptance to their innovation programs, and all provinces completed their summary task. In project implementation period, IAG members went down to provinces to review the progress of the innovation programs and made some suggestions. Chinese Experts Panel (CEP) The Terms of Reference (TOR) including the budget for the panel activities was approved by the World Bank in 1995. The agreement between the CEP and the six provinces, agreed upon by the project provinces, was also approved by the Bank and was signed. CEP was formed on October 12, 1995 and the first panel meeting was held from October 12 to October 13, 1995. The chairman of the panel is Professor Jin Xibin, Education Department of Beijing Normal University. The other panel members include: Mr. Chen Jinliang, Director of FILO, Shanxi Provincial Education Commission; Professor Wu Rina, Chinese Language Department of Central Nationality University; Dr. He Jin, the Institute of Higher Education of Peking University, he is no more the CEP member when he moved to the Bank's RMC in 2000. A secretariat was created at Education Department of Beijing Normal University to assist the operation of the panel. On the basis of the recommendations of the World Bank supervision mission, CEP organized a training workshop in July 1997 for all the project normal school principals. All the participants revealed that they learned a lot through the workshop. Every year, CEP made site visits to project provinces to provide consultative services on the project implementation. CEP members played and important role in project supervision and providing advice to the quality enhancement parts of the project. CEP's contributions to the project helped the provinces to better implement their programs and solved the issues existed in the project implementation. Training Quality Assessment System which was drafted by CEP at - 32 -  the beginning of 1996 and was practised by project provinces. Minoritv Education Training Center At the national level, this project supports to establish the Minority Education Training Center (Centre) under MOE's National Academy of Education Administration (NAEA). The Center was established at the end of 1994. In the past five years, the Center held several training workshops supported by this project including middle school principals training, primary school principals training, county education bureau directors training and training for county magistrate. At the end of each workshop, they collected comments and suggestions from the participants which will be helpful for their following training classes. The project provides US$700,000 for the Center's civil construction which was completed in 1997. All the equipment procured with project funds had arrived and are being used. All the training activities have been completed so far. One study tour visited the United States in 1997 and the second tour visited Canada in June 1999. Both tours focused on minority education policies and practices in the two countries. Three teachers have completed their one year study program with two in America and one in the UK. The fourth one-year program is revised to three persons with three separate months. One studied in Japan and two in America. C. MAIN ISSUES AND RECOMMENDATIONS (1) Provincial, Prefecture and County Education Commissions should strengthen the cooperation with its counterpart Finance Bureau to urge relevant units to provide planned counterpart funding and accelerate disbursement and reimbursement process. (2) All provinces should urge project schools to make full use of their facilities including new buildings, equipment and library books. (3) All provinces should pay more attention to the regular maintenance on the new construction so that the investment will continue to provide economic and efficient buildings well into the next century. D. NEXT STEP In order to ensure the sustainable efficiency of the Bank project, and further speed up and sustain the universalization of the nine-year compulsory education, each project province worked out its sustainability plan for the next five years after the project is completed. E. DATA FORMS See the attached. Annex: Implementation Completion Reports of the Six Project Provinces and One Municipality. - 33 -  Annexl Counterpart Funds Expenditure RMBY(000) (including primary, lower secondary and normal schools) Total Planned Civil Works Equipment Books Fumiture Overseas & Studies Teacher Training MIS Others Cumulated %_ Jiangxi 238634.60 160780.28 23357.19 18789.87 11978.45 0.00 20579.76 880.69 236366.24 99.05 Guangxi 202540.74 155602.24 22004.84 21999.56 8673.82 110.00 22742.30 3916.40 235049.14 116.05 Sichuan 174397.80 148655.61 20173.70 11793.00 5498.20 0.00 10391.40 8404.90 204916.81 117.50 Inner Monolia 152570.00 146893.00 15196.00 10595.00 9392.00 0.00 6906.00 5558.00 197304.00 129.32 Xinjiang 192597.00 172961.00 7884.49 7628.43 7539.35 286.98 7094.40 1319.66 6553.12 211267.43 109.69 Ningxia 40021.00 28585.90 2883.00 3074.50 1624.50 35.00 2157.80 233.30 2436.90 41030.90 102.50 Chongqing 39203.00 46056.27 9519.70 2157.99 1478.20 0.00 2866.40 2894.05 64972.61 165.73 NAEA 20926.00 16331.40 829.60 63.50 204.10 3750.00 21178.60 101.21 Total 1060890.14 875865.70 101848.52 76101.85 46184.52 431.98 72942.16 1552.96 34394.06 1212085.73 114.25 %" refers to the percentage of cumulated by June 30, 2000 to total planned. Comp." In the following tables refers to the amount completed by June 30, 2000.  Annex2 Credit Funds Expenditure USOOO) (including primary, lower secondary and normal schools) Allocaton Civil Works Equipment Books Fumiture Overseas & Studies Teacher Training MIS Innovation Cumulated X Jian xi 17700.00 11319.06 2920.45 1353.80 465.89 21.64 1048.39 174.94 17304.17 97.76 Guangxi 19400.00 13721.44 2561.57 1355.81 192.03 150.00 906.12 189.14 19076.11 98.33 Sichuan 16036.00 10831.65 2425.32 639.90 460.35 0.00 1110.45 178.60 15646.27 97.57 Inner Mongolia 17600.00 13405.00 1942.00 589.00 462.00 29.00 817.00 120.00 17364.00 98.66 Xinjiang 19500.00 12867.60 2107.70 1177.10 788.10 34.70 1222.90 195.35 206.41 18599.86 95.38 Ningxia 5200.00 2660.20 723.90 534.00 424.30 30.10 452.40 70.90 203.00 5098.80 98.05 Chongqing 3564.00 2290.09 577.89 177.98 71.07 0.00 292.06 3409.09 95.65 NAEA 1000.00 700.00 100.00 200.00 0.00 1000.00 100.00 Totai 100000.00 67795.04 13358.83 5827.59 2863.74 465.44 5849.32 266.25 1072.09 97498.30 97.50 "%" refers to the percentage of cumulated by June 30, 2000 to allocation.  Annex3 Civil Works Progress--Funds Expenditure (including primary, lower secondary and normal schools) .__________ Credit Funds U D(000) - Counterpart Funds RMBY('000 Total Planned (A) Comp. (B) (Bl(A)% Total Planned (A) Comp. (B) (B)/(A)% Jiangxi 11205.90 11319.06 101.01 124925.81 160780.28 128.70 Guangxi 13700.00 13721.44 100.16 124870.15 155602.24 124.61. Sichuan 11034.16 10831.65 98.16 121272.00 148655.61 122.58 Inner Mongolia 13740.00 13405.00 97.56 109326.00 146893.00 134.36 Xinjiang 13252.70 12867.60 97.09 140387.40 172961.00 123.20 Ningxia 2653.00 2660.20 100.30 27125.00 28585.90 105.39 Chongqing 2251.30 2290.09 101.72 23274.80 46056.27 197.88 Total 67837.061 67095.04 98.91 671181.16 859534.30 128.06  Annex4 Procurement Progress of Equipment--Funds Expenditure (including primary, lower secondary and normal schools) Credit Funds USD('O_0) Counterpart Funds RMBY(COOO Total Planned (A) Comp. (B) (B)/(A)% Total Planned (A) Comp. (B) B)fA % Jiangxi 3077.40 2920.45 94.90 39029.78 23357.19 59.84 Guangxi 2712.00 2561.57 94.45 21445.91 22004.84 102.61 Sichuan 247820 2425.32 97.87 19435.60 20173.70 103.80 Inner Mongolia 1565.00 1942.00 124.09 13178.00 15196.00 115.31 Xinjiang 2524.70 2107.70 83.48 10271.40 7884.49 76.76 Ningxia 770.00 723.90 94.01 3988.00 2883.00 72.29 Chongqing 634.20 577.89 91.12 3086.80 9519.70 308.40 Total 13761.50 13258.83 96.35 110435.49 101018.92 91.471  Annex5 Procurement of Furniture--Funds Expenditure for Primary and Lower Secondary Schools Credit Funds USD (000) = Counterpart Fu ds RMBY('000) ____________ Total Planned (A) Comp. (B) (B)/(A)% Total Planned (A) Comp. (B) (B)I(A)% Jiangxi 467.80 465.89 99.59 13167.28 11978.45 90.97 Guangxi 188.00 192.03 102.14 7814.80 8673.82 110.99 Sichuan 464.14 460.35 99.18 5286.20 5498.20 104.01 Inner Mongolia 455.00 462.00 101.54 8219.00 9392.00 114.27 Xinjiang 725.30 788.10 108.66 6293.00 7539.35 119.81 Ningxia 367.00 424.30 115.61 1485.50 1624.50 109.36 Chongqing 140.00 _ 71.07 50.76 804.00 1478.20 183.86 iTotal 2807.24 2863.74 102.01 43069.78 46184.52 107.23  Annex6 Procurement of Books--Funds Expenditure (including primary, lower secondary and normal schools) Credit Funds U D('000 Counterpart Fu ds RMBY'000) Total Planned (A) Comp. (B) (B)/(A)% Total Planned (A) Comp. (B) (B)/(A)% Jiangxi 1353.80 1353.80 100.00 33681.37 18789.87 55.79 Guangxi 1440.00 1355.81 94.15 21930.07 21999.56 100.32 Sichuan 684.30 639.90 93.51 9648.00 11793.00 122.23 Inner Mongolia 589.00 589.00 100.00 12261.00 10595.00 86.41 Xinjiang 1134.60 1177.10 103.74 12360.50 7628.43 61.72 Ningxia 564.00 534.00 94.68 2483.50 3074.50 123.80 Chongqing 176.20 177.98 101.01 2074.20 2157.99 104.04 Total 5941.90 5827.59 98.08 94438.64 76038.35 80.5  Annex7 Technical Assisstance Progress--Funds Expenditure ( including primary, lower secondary and normal schools) Credit Funds U' (000 = Counterpart Fu nds RMBY('000) Total Planned (A) Comp, (B) (B)I(A)% Total Planned (A) Comp. (8) (B)I(A)% Jiangxi 1195.10 1048.39 87.72 22889.96 20579.76 89.91 Guangxi 960.00 906.12 94.39 22476.22 22742.30 101.18 Sichuan 1207.20 1110.45 91.99 9954.00 10391.40 104.39 o Inner Mongolia 851.00 817.00 96.01 6656.00 6906.00 103.76 Xinjiang 1263.00 1222.90 96.83 10388.50 7094.40 68.29 Ningxia 482.00 452.40 93.86 2002.00 2157.80 107.78 Chongqing 298.30 292.06 97.91 2111.2 2866.40 135.77 Total 6256.60 5849.32 93.491 76477.88 72738.06 95.11  Annex7-1 Progress of Technical Assisstance---Training for Managers (including primary and lower secondary schools) Unit: Person-Uimes Civil Works Mana 3er Operators Administrative Staff Equipment Staff Auditor Project Mana ler Sub-total Planned Comp. % Planned Comp. % PlannedCn % Planned Coup. I % Planned Comp. % Planned Cornp. % Planned Comp. % Jiangxi 456 518 113.6 4 4 100.0 80 106 132.5 50 122 244.0 67 204 304.48 657 954 145.2 Guangxi 261 532 203.81 52 64 123.1 64 96 150.0 237 432 182.3 70 110 157.1 134 170 126.9 818 1404 171.6 Sichuan 120 148 123.3 3 25 833.3 42 42 100.0 70 70 100.0 163 163 100.0 398 448 112.6 is nner Mongolia 597 769 128.8 32 32 100.0| 51 51 100.0 45 48 106.7 49 49 100.0 46 51 110.87 820 1000 122.0 I.-_ ______ ___ ___. Xinjiang 324 510 157.4 42 51 121.4 42 51 121.4 269 208 77.3 78 90 115.4 156 182 116.7 911 1092 119.9 Ningxia 160 171 106.9 16 85 531.3 16 16 100.0 16 32 200.0 16 52 325.0 16 112 700.0 240.0 468 195.0 Chongqing 481 57 118.7 2 2 100.0 2 5 250.0 8 10 125.0 a I- 137.5 10 44 440.0 78 116 148.7 Total 1966 2705 137.61 151 263 174.2 175 219 125.1 697 878 126.0 341 504 147.8 592 926 156.4 3922 5482 139.8 "Comp.' refers to the number completed by June 30,2000. All the workshops listed here are held within the provinces.  Annex7-2 Progress of Technical Assisstance-Training for Teachers(including primary and secondary schools) Unit: Person-limes Qualicalion onjob MuLitrade _ Lab S la Biingual Library Staff Conl. Education Principal Sub-total Planne Completed % Plnned comtp % Plnannna omp. % Planne CdoCop % Plann Cn % Pianned tC % Planned Comp. % Planned Cornp. % Jtangxl 8323 8529 102.5 10470 11334 108.2 1320 1431 108.4 3639 3802 104.5 6_ 1805 1927 106.8 6430 8200 127.5 2946 3552 120.61 34933 38775 111.0 Guangxi 6660 7768 116.6 12516 13506 107.9 1021 1056 103.4 1878 1980 105.4 86 100 116.31 1407 1509 107.2 4320 9266 213.6 2015 2560 127.0 29903 37705 126.1 Skictuan 2675 41221160.1 8808 -8208 93.2 -1010 1031 102.11 833 8331 100.01 241 2411 100.0 7821 782 100.0 __1954 3004 -153.7 551 553 100.3 18754 18774 112.1 Inner Mongolia 2868 3496 121.9 5173 4939 95.5 1084 903 83.3 1170 1218 104.1 1462 3117 213.2 1 0o0 10o0o 100.0a 2650 16776 633.1 1078 4807 446.8 16483 36256 220.0 Xinjiawi 4568 4834 105.8 8171 81521 99.8 18981 2125 11t2Z1 1170 1315 112.4 1896 1984 104.81 1996 3497 175.2 1898 2139 112.8 21593 24046 111.4 Niroxrd 440 476 11082 2624 3131 119.3 627 1207 192.5 751 774 103.. _ 682 682 100C. 1439 2360 164.0 774 1243 160.6 7337 9873 134.6 701 1696 241.9 1963 2438 124.1 68 67 101.5 139 637 458.3 0 0 0.0 129 565 438.0 498 2888 579.9 107 447 417.8 3603 8736 242.5 Total 26135 30921 118.3 4972 611708 104.0 51 2 5695 111.11 10308 11369 110.3 2959 4773 161.3 7701 8449 109.7 19287 45991 238.5 9365 15301 163.4 1 30860 174165 133.3 I  CHINA: Basic Education in Poor and Minority Areas Project (Cr.2651-CHA) Report on Site Visit to Three Normal Schools in Chongqing and Sichuan 17-23 May 2001 Grace Mak Consultant 29 May 2001 Summary 1. Ms. Grace Mak (Consultant) visited Fuling Normal School in Chongqing, and Xuyong Normal School and Zhongjiang Normal School in Sichuan from 17 to 23 May, 2001 to review the implementation completion of the normal school component of the Basic Education in Poor and Minority Areas Project (BEII). She was accompanied by Ms. Zhen Xiuxin (MoE). While in Chengdu and Chongqing she met briefly with staff of the Provincial Education Bureaus. A staff member of the relevant PEdC accomrpanied her during her travel to the normal schools. 2. The normal school component was successfully completed both at the provincial and individual normal school levels. (See Tables 1-4.) The three normnal schools have reportedly elevated to first- rate normal school status by their county standards. Their sense of achievement and appreciation was evident. 3. This achievement was attributed to the BEII project in two ways. First, the Bank credit fund was a direct factor. Second, the credit enticed and accelerated different sources of local counterpart funds. In addition, the active local initiative in educational expansion also facilitated the projecr implementation. 4. The normal schools reported the benefits from the project in four ways. First, the completion of civil works has provided up-to-standard physical conditions for normal school teacher education. Second, the acquisition of facilities, e.g., procurement of cornputers, language and science laboratory equipment, musical instruments and library books, has significantly improved teaching and learning. Third, staff training has improved the quality of administrative, teaching and technical staff. Fourth, the staff have acquired new approaches to management from the World Bank and the MoE in the implementation process. 5. Despite the improvement in teaching and learning brought about by the acquisition of facilities, less attention had been shown on the qualitative dimension of innovations in teaching, such as in the design of new teaching approaches or change in teacher behavior independent of technology. Project Implementation in Sichuan and Chonnoine 6. The nornal school comnponent comprised 10 nornal schools. Since the separation of Chongqing from Sichuan in May 1997, it cornprised 9 normnal schools in Sichuan and one in Chongqing. The implementation was started in 1995 and completed in December 2000. Attainment of proiect performance indicators 7. The normal schools in Sichuan as a whole had reached the standard conditions and improved in cost- effectiveness, thus enabling them to meet the demands of universal basic education in the rural areas they serve. The written report on Sichuan provided by the Sichuan SEdC elaborated this claim. Written and site evidence on Xuyong and Zhongjiang Normal Schools provided examples supporting the claim. A similar success was shown in Fuling Normal School in Chongqing. - 43 -  8. Sichuan as a whole and the three schools visited attained the project goals set in the performance indicators. In Sichuan as a whole, the achievement was generally slightly above the target in student- teacher ratio, educational budget per student, number of library books per student, average size of normal school specialism, number of teaching hours per week per teacher, experiment offering rate, percentage of teachers with Bachelor's degree or equivalent, and girls as a percentage of all students. It reached exactly the target in experiment class as a percentage of all classes, laboratory opening rate, and library opening hours per week. It fell slightly short of the target in the number of teachers receiving training. (See Table 1). 9. The performance of individual schools varied. For example, Xuyong Normal School had an education budget per student of 2538 RMBY and 92% of its teaching staff with degree or equivalent qualifications, far higher than the provincial average, but had 38 library books per student, far lower than the provincial average. 10. The statistics on Zhongjiang Normal School (Table 3) are not comparable to those in the other Tables. The three-tier system of teacher preparation in China (normal schools for primary teachers, post- secondary non-degree normal colleges for lower secondary school teachers, and normal universities for upper secondary school teachers) is in transition to a two-tier system (normal college or equivalent for primary teachers, and universities for lower and upper secondary teachers). Normal schools will be phased out. Sichuan had 64 normal schools in 1994 and 38 presently. The others have been consolidated or converted to other types of educational organizations. In the new system the preparation of primary school teachers takes five years from the completion of Secondary 3, as compared to three years in the old system. In this context, in November 1999 the Sichuan PEdC approved the conversion of Zhongjiang Normal School to Zhongjiang Experimental Secondary School. The school in transition has two more cohorts of normal school students. The statistics in Table 3 cover both the normal school and experimental secondary school populations. 11. Fuling Normal School also surpassed the target indicators, and by a wide margin in education budget per student, number of library books per student, and percentage of teachers with degree or equivalent qualifications (Table 4). 12. The increase in proportion of girls was due to a positive discrimination policy in 1992 to 1997, when the admission score was slightly lower for girls than for boys. Since then, expansion in nine-year basic education has resulted in higher rates of girls completing Secondary 3. Girls no longer need preferential admission arrangement. Civil works, procurement ofegquipment and librarv books, and technical assistance 13. The Bank loan for the normal school component in Sichuan was US$ 1,100,000, of which US$1,075,720 (97.79%) was disbursed. The outstanding amount was due to the absence of bidders in the second round of library books procurement. Table 5 provides a breakdown of the disbursement by category. The planned counterpart fund was RMBY 24,923,000, when the actual disbursed amount was RMBY 28,889,410 (115.91%). Table 6 provides a breakdown of the disbursement by category. In civil works and staff training the available figures also showed that Sichuan had surpassed the planned targets. (See Table 7.) 14. Parallel performance of the schools visited demonstrated a similar pattem. (See Tables 8 to 10 for statistics on Xuyong Normal School and Zhongjiang Normal School respectively.) 15. In Chongqing, Fuling Normal School disbursed 92.75% of the credit fund and 205% of the counterpart fund. Fuling has enjoyed a more favorable fnancial arrangement since the separation of Chongqing from Sichuan, hence generous support from the counterpart fund. Tables 11 and 12 provide details of its credit fund and counterpart fund disbursement. - 44 -  Project impact on the normal schools 16. The normal schools visited viewed the benefits primarily in terms of improvement brought about by facilities upgrading. The construction of new buildings and renovation of old ones have created more and better space for teaching and administration. The new photocopier has greatly improved the printing of exam papers. This was demonstrated with pride at both Xuyong and Fuling Normal Schools. The leap was from the manual printer to the 120 copies per minute photocopier. The procurement of computers has enabled the offering of computer studies as a subject. The science laboratory equipment has enabled the offering of experimental classes. The language laboratory equipment has much improved the teaching of accurate Putonghua pronunciation, which is a basic skill in teaching. The procurement of musical instruments and construction of rooms for individualized practice has enabled the music training of primary teachers, thus equipping them with diverse skills to meet the needs of rural schools. The acquisition of library books has greatly increased extracurricular reading materials available to students. 17. The use of new approaches to teaching and the integration of theory and practice has been interpreted as the change brought about by these facilities, such as in laboratory and Putonghua classes. However, there was no mention of a deeper sense of innovative teacher behavior or teaching theories. The ability to teach in a multigrade classroom is no longer a necessity except in extremely poor areas due to the increase in supply of primary teachers. 18. Another benefit was new knowledge of management. All three schools reported with pride that they had reached a higher quality in management. The principals training program was an eye-opening experience. Training has raised the qualifications and quality of teaching staff and the know-how of non-teaching staff. The schools realized the importance of human resources over tangible resources and thus raised extra funds for staff training. In the course of project implementation, the school personnel have learned from the World Bank in management, including documentation, use of performance indicators, monitoring and evaluation. In 1998 the Chongqing PEdC has published a 67- page manual on project documentation, procedures of application, financial management, and library and laboratory management, etc., for distribution to project institutions. 19. The schools viewed the value of the Bank credit not so much in amount as in its function as a catalyst. Counterpart funds were committed more readily and in larger amounts. They had leaped from have- not schools to relatively well-equipped ones in a few years. 20. They reported improvement in the quality of their teachers and students. Fuling Normal School, for example, reported that primary schools like to recruit its graduates as teachers. 21. In future, Fuling and Xuyong Nornal Schools will try to secure additional funds for buildings and equipment maintenance. Zhongjiang Normal School will try to transfer the benefits accumulated to the running of the Zhongjiang Experimental Secondary School. The latter is in the process of applying for provincial key school status. 22. The area that could have been improved would be greater school autonomy such as in the purchase of library books. The list of library books for purchase was decided not by the schools, thus resulting in some books not directly relevant to the schools' needs. In addition, the principal of Zhongjiang Normnal School suggested a study tour not only to other parts of China, but also overseas, to broaden their horizons. - 45 -  Table 1 Project performance of Sichuan Province Performance indicator 1992 1995 1999 . Planned Actual Student/teacher ratio 9.8 10.6 11.3 11.5 Educational budget er student (RMBY) 978 1373 1530 1548 No. of library books per student 24.3 27.2 52 55 Average size of normal school Recialismn 576 665.2 758 781 No. of teaching hours per week per teacher 10 10.4 12 12.1 Experiment offering rate (%) 73.6 75 80 81.2 % of teachers with Bachelor's degree or equivalent 60 63 72 76 Experiment class as a percentage of all classes (