Primary

Cambodia has made good progress in rebuilding its education system after three decades of conflict and isolation. Enrollments are growing, administration is improving, and large numbers of schools have been rehabilitated. A number of innovative and mutually reinforcing programs have energized local administrators and resourced schools, building on early efforts to rebuild capacity.

The purpose of this paper is to review World Bank interventions that have some bearing on child labor. This paper is neither meant to assess the impact of these interventions on reduction or elimination of child labor, nor does it make recommendations to address this issue. However, it does suggest linkages between human development intervention and child labor to justify the criteria for choosing only Human Development Projects as the sector projects with a bearing on child labor.

The report intends to help the development of school health, and nutrition programs that are cost effective, and which respond to local needs. The first part of the report offers some guidelines on how to conduct a Situation Analysis, which should aim at showing: what are the challenges to the health, and nutrition of school children in a specific country; what is currently being done to improve the health, and nutrition of schoolchildren at the district, or national level; and, what opportunities there are for strengthening this response.

The study aims at assisting the Government in undertaking an evaluation of the system of secondary education, and skills development, in order to plan the many complex decisions, and future international finance assistance in the sector. The objectives of the study are to determine general employment trends, including a sampling of employer views on skill development; to evaluate the cost effectiveness, and quality of present academic, and vocational secondary education; and, to develop alternative scenarios for expansion of secondary education.

The study aims at assisting the Government in undertaking an evaluation of the system of secondary education, and skills development, in order to plan the many complex decisions, and future international finance assistance in the sector. The objectives of the study are to determine general employment trends, including a sampling of employer views on skill development; to evaluate the cost effectiveness, and quality of present academic, and vocational secondary education; and, to develop alternative scenarios for expansion of secondary education.

Many countries suffer from high levels of water and sanitation-related diseases that affect the poorer segments of society, and children in particular. To break the transmission routes of these diseases increased access to water and sanitation must be combined with improved hygiene practices. Experience has shown that an effective method to improve hygiene is by teaching basic health and hygiene in schools, since children are important agents of change. This field note describes the experiences from a model for health and hygiene promotion through the school system in Peru.

Poland has in many respects made less progress than any other Central European countries in restructuring and updating its secondary education system to meet the needs of a transition economy. Consequently there are several serious issues which need to be further addressed. 1) Over-centralization: Educational policymaking in Poland continues to be mainly the concern of the Ministry of Education and the teachers' unions. Parents, pupils, local social leaders, and employers have limited involvement. This creates the impression that the system is run primarily to benefit those working in it.

The objectives of the paper are: to examine patterns of utilization, ownership, and affordability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia; to discuss applications of ICTs to the poor by the private sector, the Government, and external donors; and to suggest ways in which ICTs can best be used in poverty alleviation strategies. The paper finds that SSA and South Asia have the lowest access to ICTs resources. There are critical access gaps between urban and rural areas, and between the poorest and the richest.

The educational attainment of Brazil's labor force, has gradually increased over the past two decades. At the same time, the government has pursued a series of economic structural adjustment policies. The authors investigate how these simultaneous advances have altered the relationship between labor market earnings, and education. They find that the returns to education in the labor market, fundamentally changed between 1982, and 1998.

The study examines the preschool programs - the predominant model found in the two countries - of early childhood care, and development (ECCD), in the comparatively wealthy country (by African standards) of Cape Verde, and the very poor country, Guinea. Its purpose is to build a knowledge base about the status of ECCD in West Africa, to identify the building blocks of affordable, and effective preschool, or ECCD programs within an African context, and, to better understand the role that governments, and donors can play to support ECCD initiatives.