Education

WB to allocate $60-m loan for education strategy
Ministry of Education representatives are due to travel to Washington in late March to conducting talks over loaning the Azerbaijani education strategy with the World Bank (WB). Minister for Education Misir Mardanov has told the media that a preliminary agreement on this issue was reached with a WB mission that visited Baku last week and remaining technical aspects would be discussed in Washington. He added the loan totaling $63m would be allocated in three tranches. Under the agreement, $18m will be delivered during the first four years, $20m in the next three years and $25m in the final three years. The strategy envisages projects on training teachers, improving technology at school libraries, repair of schools in three pilot districts, etc.

AZM270bn to be spend on construction of schools
Minister for Education Misir Mardanov told a news conference at the ruling New Azerbaijan Party's office on Friday that implementation of the state program on improvement of the logistics of secondary schools had already started. The AZM-270bn program to be financed from the state budget includes construction of 149 school buildings and major repair of 408 schools. The minister said that 4,513 schools existing the country are in poor condition, stressing the need for 590 schools to accommodate 600,000 pupils.

Azerbaijan, Turkey to recognise diplomas
The issue on mutual recognition of diplomas between Azerbaijan and Turkey will be settled during an official visit to Baku by Turkish Education Minister Erkan Mumcu. The Turkish embassy told AssA-Irada that the visit, due in of April, would see the signing of an appropriate agreement between the education ministries of both nations.

US teachers promote civic studies
The US State Department is financing a program, Partnership in Education, for teachers in Azerbaijan starting in 2002. As part of the program, nine teachers travelled to three US states, California, Montana and Ohio, in September last year while, two teachers from Montana, Bill Stodart and Ken Gibson are in Baku from March 4 on. During the two-week trip, the visitors have visited a number of schools in Baku as well as in Ganca. The American teachers have told AssA-Irada that the attitude towards education is very serious in Azerbaijan. They said there are things to be learned from Azerbaijani counterparts, and in general they were very pleased with Azerbaijani education system. The US teachers’ visit to Azerbaijan is organized by ACCELS.