The building of new class and teacher rooms, toilets and the supply of clean water was the tangible result of the Primary Education for Disadvantaged Children, or PEDC, project, a workshop in Ha Noi was told yesterday. Such facilities did not exist at primary schools before the project was launched about seven years ago, said northern-highland Lao Cai Province's Education and Training Department director Truong Kim Minh. But the project, intended to provide infrastructure at remote schools, would not have been feasible without generous funding. Contractors spurned such construction work because the harsh, remote terrain made their work less profitable, said director Minh.
"Only a project of the scale of PEDC could finance this type of construction work."
The project has improved the basic facilities in almost 6,400 primary schools in 227 districts. About 67 %of its budget is used to improve school infrastructure and flimsy bamboo classrooms have been replaced with solid structures. These were among the project's major achievements, its director Dang Tu An told the review. The project has built or renovated 19,861 classrooms; 5,101 teacher rooms; 10,642 toilets; brought 72,089 student desks and chairs; 3487 blackboards and installed 4,762 clean-water systems. The project also has 13 capacity-building programmes to help change the attitude of officials, teachers and communities to disadvantaged children and provide them with appropriate teaching methods. Most workshop participants praised the appointment of teacher assistants where minority children were a majority. It was an important way to motivate children older than six to attend school; encourage student retention and reduce the dropout rate, they said. Central-coastal Khanh Hoa Province Education and Training Department representative Hoang Thi Ly said the project had created more opportunities for disadvantaged children to attend school. The project's total budget is US$243.67 million, including a $138.76 million World Bank loan and donor grants of $61.54 million. The Viet Nam Government provided $43.37 million. (VNS Dec 7)
