Belarus - Education Modernization Project

Overview & Synopsis

Ratings for the Education Modernization Project for Belarus were as follows: outcome was moderately unsatisfactory, Bank Performance was satisfactory, and monitoring and evaluation (M and E) quality was substantial. Some lessons learned included: physical investments in educational infrastructure can be important starting points in emerging collaboration between the Bank and borrowers and at the same time foster substantive innovation both directly and indirectly. Citizen engagement and community involvement are important for implementation success. Participation in international learning assessments has several advantages. In the case of Belarus, the analysis of results from Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 served to have an in-depth understanding of the quality of secondary education in relation to other countries in the region and identified areas of improvement. The challenges of developing management information systems in-house is often underestimated. As shown by the delays in the preparation of the technical specification for the education management information system (EMIS), which was ultimately contracted out to a third party, denote the challenges faced by permanent staff to tackle additional tasks that require a significant concentration of efforts in addition to their regular responsibilities. Another critical lesson is the need to embed pandemic resistance and disaster management institutional measures in the design of Bank projects.