Announcement of Thirty-Eight Million Five Hundred Thousand US Dollar Lent for Education and Highways in Colombia on May 13, 1970

1NTERNATIONAL BANK FOR \ • RECONSTRUCTlON AND DEVELOPMENT 1818 H STREET, N.W., WASHINGTON D. C. 20433 TELEPHONE: EXECUTIVE 3-6360 Bank Press Release No. 70/24 Subject: $38.5 million lent for educa- May 13, 1970 tion and highways in Colombia Two Colombian high priority programs -- secondary education reform and high- way development -- will go forward with the assistance of the World Bank, which today announced two loans to Colombia totaling $38.5 million. A loan of $6.5 mil- lion, the Bank's second loan for education in Colombia, will help finance the con- struction and equipment of nine comprehensive secondary schools that will emphasize basic preparation of skilled personnel for business, social service, industry and agriculture, and thereby help meet the manpower requirements of a growing economy. Another loan, of $32 million, will assist Colombia in upgrading its national high- • way system and will help to provide, for the first time, paved links between the major inland cities and the major ports. tion for highway development in Colombia. It will be the Bank Group's sixth opera- $6.5 million, 30-year, 10 years of grace, 7% loan to the Republic of Colombia The Colombian Government is restructuring secondary-level education in order to meet the need for trained middle-level manpower. As part of its plans for edu- cat~on reform, the Government has under way a program to establish 19 comprehensive secondary schools which integrate academic studies and practical courses, thereby preparing students both for the labor market and for further studies, and acceler- '·. ating the shift in enrollment from academic to industrial and agricultural studies,. These schools are to be located in 18 departmental capitals, serving large urban population centers. The first pha§e of the program, which provided: for the con- struct.ion and equipment of 10 such schools, is being implemented with the assist- • ance of an earlier Bank loan of $7.6 million. The first school was recently in· augurated and all schools in this phase are expected to be completed before the end of 1971. /more Bank P.R. No. 70/24 - Colombia-Education and highways· - 2 - The new project will help to finance the second phase of the program, which includes the construction and equipment of nine more comprehensive secondary schools that will provide space, on a two-shift basis, fot 31,000 students; re- • lated technicafassistance; and administrative and operational costs of a unit within the lnstituto Colombiano de Construcciones Escolares (ICCE), which will execute the project. ICCE is also carrying out the first project. In the project schools, the six-year secondary education course will pro- gress in three stages of two years each, from general exploratory studies in pre-vocational subj.ects (academic, agriculturals commercial, industrial and social service), to more specialized co.µrses, such as the humanities, science, metal mechanics, electricity, construction, in,dustrial chemistry, farming, animal husbandry, secretarial, bookkeeping, health, comnunity development, and home economics. able options. Guidan~;: couhael.lors will assist the students in choosing suit- Initially, the schools will offer a combination of options con- sistent with the types of manpower needed in the area in which they are located. • The total cost of the project is estimated at the equivalent of $13 million. The Bank loan will provide $6.5 million and the remainder will be provided by the Government of Colombia. the project is scheduled for completion in 1972. Assistance was provided the Colombian Government in identifying and pre- paring the program to establish 19 comprehensive secondary schools by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) under the Bank/Unesco Cooperative Program. The Bank mission which appraised this project included a specialist in agricultural education of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United ·Nations under the Bank/FAO Cooperative Program. /more •  Bank P.R. NoQ 70/24 - Colombia-Education and Highways - 3 - •• $32 million, 25-z_ear (4 vears of grac_e1 7% loan to the Republic of Colombia Franklin National Bank, New York, Security Pacific National Bank, Los Angeles, and First Wisconsin National Bank of Milwaukee are participating in this loan foe a total amount of $250,000. A large part of Colombia's 21 million people are concentrated in the elevated Bogota-Cali-Medellin triangle, in about one-fifth of the country's land area of approximately 400,000 square miles. Other large population centers are in the Atlantic seaports of Cartagena, Barranquilla, and Santa Marta. Due to Colombia's difficult terrain and the isolation and traditional independence of the \·arious regions, the development of a coherent highway system started only two decades ago. The project includes the paving of approximately 1,000 miles of highway, representing an increase of over 30% in the paved length of the national high- way network. The 48 road sections selected for the paving program have traffic ~ volumes ranging from 220 to 1,460 vehicles a day. Other project works are the construction of a bridge across Colombia's largest river, the Magdalena, on the highway between Barranquilla and Santa Marta, which will form part of the Trans- Caribbean highway linking Colombia and Venezuela; upgrading of the road between iEl Pailon and the port of Buenaventura, which is the final section of a new highway connecting Colombia's most active port with the rest of the country; and consulting services for the supervision of construction. The Ministry of Public Wo:rks, assisted by consultants, will execute the ich is scheduled for completion in 1973 at a total cost equivalent project, w~1 I \\ to about $6'~ million. Constructiui'L,will be under contracts let on the basis of \\ international competitive bidding. lhe Bank loan will meet the project's esti- mated foreign exchange requirements and a portion of the local costs of consulting services. The remaining finance will be provided by the Government of Colombia. ,_-· The project will bring the total lent by the Bank Group for highway develop- ment in Colombia to $13S.SS million. - 0 .;.