World Bank approves US$21M financing…Maths improvement, flood control on East Coast targetted

Oct 12, 2014 News

Government has signed a US$21M financing agreement with the World Bank that

Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh and the Guyana delegation with members of the World Bank team in Washington D.C.

will target measures to improve the standards of mathematics in secondary schools as well strengthen drainage along vulnerable parts of East Coast of Demerara.
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, signed two agreements with the bank that will support the country’s education and agriculture sectors.
Signing the agreement with Singh was Sophie Sirtaine, Director of the Caribbean Country Management Unit of the World Bank.
The monies will target measures to increase enrollment in general secondary schools and improve standards of mathematics teaching for secondary education.
In the agriculture sector, the loan agreement will support the implementation of a flood risk management programme.
One of the agreements signed is for a loan of US$10M in support of the Secondary School Improvement Programme which aims to increase enrollment in general secondary schools and improve teaching standards of mathematics at the secondary level.
“The Secondary School Improvement Project forms part of the Government of Guyana’s long term initiative to achieve Universal Secondary Education by 2016. About 85 percent of young Guyanese are enrolled in secondary education. Guyana has already achieved universal primary education in keeping with the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG),” the ministry said.

Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, shakes hands with Sophie Sirtaine, Director of the Caribbean Country Management Unit of the World Bank, after the signing.

Among concrete results to be achieved by the project will be the enrollment of 2,600 new students from vulnerable areas in general secondary schools.
The monies will also be used to introduce a pilot project that will use technology to raise the level of learning in mathematics. Part of the measures also will see 600 secondary mathematics teachers trained, mathematics standards for secondary school teachers increased, and mathematics kits distributed to 250 secondary schools.
With regards to the Flood Risk Management Programme (FRMP), some US$11M will be used to reduce flooding along vulnerable sections of East Coast Demerara.
“More than 300,000 people from the area will benefit from reduced flooding and climate risks as a result of the loan which forms part of the International Development Association (IDA) approved by the World Bank,” the Ministry explained.
Close to 90 per cent of Guyana’s population lives on coastal plain which is largely below sea level and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Minister Singh noted that in 2005, Guyana faced devastation from flooding that led to damages in excess of 60 per cent of GDP.
“The Government of Guyana is working to ensure that measures are put in place to ensure that the floods of 2005 and such destruction to both human and physical resources never occur again,” he said.
The FRMP will also seek to upgrade critical sections of the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) dams and channels. The conservancy lies back of the housing area by the dam that separate the billions of gallons of water from the thousands of homes have been under threat from time to time.
The project will also target improvement to the drainage capacity in priority areas along the East Demerara coast. It will see an improvement in flood preparedness with the installation of instruments to monitor hydro-meteorological data.

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