Contacts In Washington: Nathalie Lahire Email: nlahire@worldbank.org In Guinea: Siaka Bakayoko Email: sbakayoko@worldbank.org WASHINGTON, October 30, 2008 - The Board of Directors of the World Bank has approved a US$10 million grant to support Guinea’s education program as it seeks to embark on far reaching reform to improve access, management and conditions for teaching and learning in its school system. These actions are critical for the attainment of Education for All targets and the Millennium Development Goals. Given the major economic shocks facing Guinea currently, finding money to pay teachers’ salaries has proven to be difficult. Bank support ensures that teachers will be paid on time during 2008 and thus guarantees that the beginning of the school year is not jeopardized. The project will also provide incentives to entice teachers to work in challenging and remote areas. This is the second time the Bank’s Board has approved funds for Guinea’s education sector since 2001. The first one was a US$70 million approved on July 24, 2001. More recently, the sector benefited from a US$118 million grant from the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative Catalytic Fund, which is expected to become effective beginning January 2009. An important objective of the project is the overhaul of the payroll system in the education sector. Over 20 percent of the teachers on the payroll were absent at the time of the physical census conducted in April 2007. The salaries of all these absentee teachers were suspended in September 2008, pending verification of their status. The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Ministries of Finance, Civil Service, and representatives from the Teacher Unions joined forces to screen all absentee teachers when school resumed in October 2008. Those identified as “ghost workers” have been struck from the wage bill. The project also seeks to sustain these improvements by creating mechanisms within the state apparatus, and within civil society, to increase accountability. No new teacher will be put onto the payroll without the prior clearance of the Ministry of Finance. An independent auditor firm will conduct spot checks to ensure that teachers that are on the payroll really teach and that they are paid in time. Information about payroll will be posted monthly in all schools, and civil society organizations, including parent teacher associations and trade unions, will be encouraged to report to specially designated offices paid staff that do not show up to work. Moreover, salaries of teachers in far away villages will be increased in order to improve their availability in the poorest parts of the country. According to Ishac Diwan, World Bank Country Director for Guinea, “there is nothing more important than to ensure that the Guinean youth receive a good education -- this is the best assurance that their future will be brighter than their parent's. Even though we have issues with governance and economic management in Guinea, we believe it is important to redouble our efforts in education. ” “We are financing this sector after we have received assurances that its governance will improve sharply. Our intervention is predicated on measures by the government to remove ghost names from the payroll, pay teachers on time, and pay a premium to teachers to accept to move to the poorer parts of the country,” he added.
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