Reuters AlertNet Lite - World Bank ups African independent school funding

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World Bank ups African independent school funding

07 Dec 2006 17:25:58 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The World Bank's private sector arm, criticized for investing largely in middle-income countries, is ramping up investment in Africa's independent primary and secondary schools, officials said on Thursday.

The International Finance Corp. approved partial guarantees totaling $3.2 million to K-Rep Bank, which is owned in part by Chicago-based ShoreBank, for two independent schools in Kenya.

"The most important thing about the Kenya Schools-K-Rep Bank project is not so much the amount of financing but IFC's value-added," IFC spokeswoman Ludwina Joseph said. "We would call this a small first step by IFC and a concept validation."

The Kenya program is the second IFC investment in Africa's education sector after its Ghana schools pilot project in June 2005. IFC is now considering replicating this program in other sub-Saharan African countries, she said.

"IFC is using a local bank to channel resources because the needs of the schools are often small and IFC cannot administer small loans. ... IFC's presence helps share risk in a difficult market and K-Rep to increase its education portfolio," she said.

IFC chief Lars Thunell said in September he would "make sure" the institution he took over earlier this year invests more in Africa and other so-called frontier markets.

Three years ago, Kenya scrapped school fees but did not expand its education budget, resulting in a 20 percent jump in enrollment without any growth in staff or resources.

There is a demand for 5,000 new secondary school classrooms each year in Kenya -- a country of 34 million people with an average age of 18 -- for the coming three years.

"Universal primary free education has crowded out the private sector but the public schools did not have the capacity to provide it so now students are going back to private schools," said IFC education specialist John Soleanicov.

"There's an anticipated latent demand in secondary schools as students graduate from primary schools," he added.

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Last updated:Thu Dec 7 17:28:12 2006