ADB offers two loans for education and infrastructure improvement

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has announced it will provide two loans totalling US$165 million to help Vietnam improve its education and rural infrastructure in poor provinces.

Photo for Illustration (Photo: Thai Thien).

The first US$80 million will be used to support the second phase of a project to improve lower secondary education of poor ethnic minorities in several disadvantaged areas and typhoon-hit coastal areas.

Building on the success of the first phase, which was completed in 2014, the second phase has some new features and innovations including region-based textbooks, more attention to life skills education and model libraries for extra education for ethnic students.

With a six-year implementation period, the new project is expected to raise the enrolment rate of lower secondary education in the targeted areas by 5% by 2020 through the building of hundreds of classrooms, semi-boarding facilities and the training of some 24,000 teachers.

The second loan of US$85 million will be used as additional finance to an integrated rural development infrastructure project, which was approved by the ADB in 2007.

The original project targeted critical infrastructure in 13 provinces in central Vietnam and the additional financing will support the improvement of irrigation infrastructure over four years in the six selected provinces based on their good performance on the initial project.

As of August 2014, the project has achieved its intended outcomes but much work is needed to reduce infrastructure constraints to production, diversification and economic growth.

(Source: nhandan.org.vn)