Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA | Moldova | Education Global Practice | Recipient Executed Activities | Investment Project Financing | FY 2014 | Seq No: 3 | ARCHIVED on 18-Sep-2015 | ISR20565 | Implementing Agencies: Key Dates Key Project Dates Board Approval date:16-Dec-2013 Effectiveness Date:20-Dec-2013 Planned Mid Term Review Date:20-Oct-2016 Actual Mid-Term Review Date:-- Original Closing Date:20-Dec-2018 Revised Closing Date:20-Dec-2018 Project Development Objectives Project Development Objective (from Project Appraisal Document) The objective of the Project is to empower the Member Country’s civil society to: (i) engage local, regional and national authorities in evidence- based policy and budget dialogue in the Member Country’s education sector; and (ii) to promote an enabling environment for social accountability. Has the Project Development Objective been changed since Board Approval of the Project Objective? No PHRPDODEL Components Name Component 1. Building an Environment Enabling Sustainable Social Accountability in Moldova:(Cost $0.23 M) Component 2. Applying Social Accountability Tools to Empower Local and Regional Stakeholders to Increase Policy Accountability:(Cost $0.18 M) Component 3. Integrating Social Accountability with Policy and Budget Dialogue:(Cost $0.22 M) Component 4. Knowledge and Learning:(Cost $0.05 M) Overall Ratings Name Previous Rating Current Rating Progress towards achievement of PDO  Satisfactory  Satisfactory Overall Implementation Progress (IP)  Satisfactory  Satisfactory 9/28/2015 Page 1 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) Implementation Status and Key Decisions Implementation Status and Key Decisions (Public Disclosure) Project implementation is on track and is expected to satisfactorily achieve its development objective by the closing date but will require restructuring of the PDO-level indicator four "Level of satisfaction of the quality of education services" given that the survey is to be applied every year to a different group of stakeholders directly affected by the project activities. Project Status by Components Component 1. Building an Environment Enabling Sustainable Social Accountability in Moldova ($0.23M) Under this component the implementing agency supports building environment enabling social accountability in the country through creation of partnerships and development of mechanisms and social accountability tools (SAT) for citizens’ oversight of Moldova’s education sector. The intermediate outputs of this component envisage: (1) social accountability training needs assessed; (2) open data readiness assessed; (3) network of regional focal-points built, active and extending further down the local level; (4) regional focal-points trained to use Social Accountability tools and to train other users; (6) regional mechanism for citizens oversight created and replicated and; (7) local coalitions trained to use Social Accountability tools. Contracts with five regional partners that successfully supported project activities (at the local level) during the first year of project implementation have been extended for the second year. During the first year of project implementation all planned activities in the first twenty schools selected to participate in GPSA initiative have been completed (over the five years the number of participating schools will reach 100 institutions). Five regional partners led local coalitions in the selected twenty schools and: (i) conducted discussions about the schools’ budget including at public hearings identifying priorities that should be reflected in the budget; (ii) ensured application of the Education Stakeholder Report Cards tool at the school level so that to obtain users’ feedback on quality of schooling, and school policies and practices including in relation to budget allocations; and (iii) used ScoalaMea.md website to access information or to provide feedback. Members of the local coalitions’ network encompass over 300 participants. The next group of 20 schools was selected based on an open contest organized during February 26th – March 11th, 2015. The announcement was advertised widely and posted online on http://scoalamea.md/selectam-scoli-in-calitate-de-beneficiari-ai-initiativei-scoala-mea/. The schools were selected by the Expert-Grup team, according to criteria agreed with project partners (presence of a School Administration Board (SAB), Student Council, and the openness to implement social accountability tools). The list of preselected schools was consulted with project regional partners, Ministry of Education and the World Bank office in Moldova. As a result, 20 schools were selected out of 49 applicants. The School Administration Boards (local coalitions) were identified/or built in each school according to the Regulation on SAB and encompass the school director and deputy directors, one representative of the local authorities, three parents, two teachers, a student, and any interested stakeholder in the school/community. In 20 new schools, there are 303 people on the lists of SABs. A total of 265 participants took part in training sessions in May 2015. The 20 new schools are located in 9 rayons, Chisinau and Balti municipality and UTA Gagauzia. Memoranda signing event took place on May 7, 2015, at the Ministry of Education. New administrative-territorial units in Year 2 encompass: Balti, UTA Gagauzia, Briceni, Edinet, Leova, Criuleni, Orhei and Falesti. This brings the total number of rayons taking part in the GPSA initiative to 16 out of 35 rayons/municipalities in Moldova. The EXPERT-GRUP ensured close collaboration and coordination of activities with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, municipal and regional governments, other CSOs, including through the meetings of the Project Advisory Board (PAB) that was established to support Project implementation and to guide it strategically. The PAB meetings are conducted regularly on a biannual basis. The second Open Data and Management Information Systems Readiness report is to be developed starting September 2015. The first ODRA report in education covering eight dimensions [(i) leadership; (ii) legal and policy framework; (iii) institutional framework, responsibilities and skills; (iv) educational data; (v); demand for open data; (vi) open data ecosystem; (vii) funding of open data initiatives; and (viii) national infrastructure of technologies and skills] is available at: http://www.expert-grup.org/en/biblioteca/item/1047-odra/ and http://scoalamea.md/evaluarea-disponibilitatii- datelor-in-educatie/. Actions of the Expert Group under the project went hand in hand with the social accountability initiatives of the Ministry of Education (e.g. making the Baccalaureate exams results for publicly available, opening up school budgets, ensuring legal grounds for open data and participatory processes at the school level in the new Education Code). It is important for the project to keep collaborating with the new leadership of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance for greater impact, and the implementing agency is working actively on this front informing and engaging the line ministries in various events. Component 2. Applying Social Accountability Tools to Empower Local and Regional Stakeholders to Increase Policy Accountability ($0.18M) This component envisages empowering local and regional stakeholders of Moldova’s education sector to increase policy accountability including: (a) organization and implementation of meetings to discuss the planned budgets of selected schools; (b) preparation of education stakeholder report cards, adjusted to Moldova context; (c) collection of data and digitalization of results for the education stakeholders report cards; and (d) development of a website to facilitate evidence-based policy and budget dialogue and exchange of information at the local, regional and national level. A public hearings toolkit which the implementing agency was disseminated in schools for the use of School Administration Boards when organizing 9/28/2015 Page 2 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) public hearings about the school budget; and posted online. Public hearings in the first 20 schools have been conducted during the first year of project implementation, and public hearings in the group of new 20 schools are schedule for September-November 2015. Education Stakeholder Report Cards (ESCR), administered in 20 schools during the first year of project implementation, were updated taking into account feedback of project partners and beneficiaries. ESRC were applied in the second round of 20 schools, with the support of regional partners (1870 parents, 3387 students and 567 teachers including principals participated). Once analyzed, data will be disseminated to schools to inform the public hearings. A new “ScoalaMea” online platform allowing visualization of the school report cards on the map of the country was developed and presented to the public on February 20, 2015 during the launch event at the World Bank office in Chisinau. The platform facilitates citizens’ engagement in and monitoring of the quality of education service delivery helping parents and students analyze data on school Component 3. Integrating Social Accountability with Policy and Budget ($0.22M) The key objective of this component is to ensure that results of social accountability tools are effectively used by the Ministry of Education and local/regional authorities to complement formal M&E, to inform education policy planning and execution and to underpin budget-related dialogue. It envisages: (a) carrying out of annual independent education budget analysis for the education sector; (b) carrying out of independent monitoring activities to engage and inform relevant stakeholders about policy changes in the education sector of Moldova; (c) carrying out of workshops for relevant stakeholders to discuss the education mid-term expenditures framework, prepared by the Ministry of Finance; (d) preparation of policy papers, including the carrying out of quantitative analysis of the educational policy issues. In April 2015, the Moldovan Economic Growth Analysis report (one of the two planned for calendar year 2015) was published and presented at the seminar with 61 participants. It analyzed the economic developments in Moldova in 2014 and the beginning of 2015 including the key macroeconomic and sector-level trends and provided forecasts for key economic indicators for 2015. The budget analysis for each of the new 20 schools is under preparation (infographics with the key findings will be used during public hearings on school budgets). The Education Mid-Term Expenditures Framework workshops are scheduled for September and October 2015. The qualitative and quantitative assessments of the education policy issues will be conducted later in the calendar year, after the analysis of the Education Stakeholder Report Cards data, conduction of the public hearings and sector analysis. Component 4. Knowledge and learning ($0.05M) The objectives of this component are to ensure that lessons learned from the implementation of the social accountability mechanisms are taken into account, methodology is improved with every round of social accountability exercises, and that Moldova’s experience is showcased internationally. The K&L system put in place for the Project will include periodic documentation of what works, lessons learned and suggestions for further improvements in similar initiatives, through several learning products. The intermediate outputs of this component will be: (1) “How to notes” produced; and (2) case studies produced and featured on scoalamea.md. Preparation and dissemination of learning products on social accountability mechanisms is advancing well. Following the blog ‘What does it take to build a Citizen Oversight Mechanism in education in Moldova?’ on GPSA knowledge platform http://gpsaknowledge.org Expert Group prepared four case studies/success stories and shared the lessons learned on ScoalaMea web-site. Once translated into English, case studies will be uploaded to the GPSA Knowledge Platform. During the last year the team conducted 8 presentations on the project activities at various events including at Civil Society Policy Forum during Spring Meetings 2015; GPSA Forum; meeting with the rayon authorities (at the invitation of the Ministry of Education); Knowledge Triangle International forum on education-research-innovation; National Student Council meeting; event on Results of Civil Society Monitoring of Public Procurement at Municipal Level; OKFN Open Education Working Group online meeting etc. The first “Scoala Mea” Conference for beneficiaries, partners and donors is scheduled for September 25th as part of the K&L program (to disseminate key lessons and to encourage other schools to undertake similar initiatives). A communication strategy for the project is updated regularly based on the lessons learned. With the support of „URMA ta” company responsible for video podcasts and other communication products, the team developed: (i) short video about the project; and printed materials such as: posters for public hearings; leaflets with the Independent budget analyses and other materials which were distributed to schools for the relevant events. In addition, external evaluation of the project has been conducted. The report evaluating the results of the first year of project implementation with findings (overall very positive) and recommendations is publically available. 9/28/2015 Page 3 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) Results Project Development Objective Indicators PHINDPDOTBL  Number of educational-sector stakeholders taking part in education budget consultations at local, regional and national level (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 457.00 3000.00 5500.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments Members of local coalitions and other stakeholders involved in training and analysis of school budget, public hearings on school budget and education MTEF roundtables. PHINDPDOTBL  Number of users of the scoalamea.md (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 4083.00 14800.00 10000.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments Measured by unique pageviews of the scoalamea.md web-site as shown by Google Analytics report/website statistics. PHINDPDOTBL  Quality level of the education policy debate (Text, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value Not available 5.14 +0.7 to baseline +2.5 to baseline 9/28/2015 Page 4 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments Level on the scale from 1 (low level) to 10 (high level). Calculated from the responses of education policy experts. The first survey was conducted in July - August 2014 (baseline was established at 5.14). After policy debates organized by the project team a second survey was administered in December 2014 (first year of project implementation) to evaluate the change compared to the baseline. Quality level was equal to 5.84 on a scale of 1 to 10. Change compared to baseline: +0.7. In the second year the survey will be conducted in November 2015. PHINDPDOTBL  Level of satisfaction of the quality of education services (Text, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 7.6 Not yet due +0.2 to baseline +2.5 to baseline Date 31-Dec-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments Level on the scale from 1 (low level) to 10 (high level). Grade calculated from the responses of users of the education services (students, parents, members of local coalitions, excluding school management). Survey was conducted in September - November 2014 (baseline was established at 7.6). Second round of surveys was administered at the end of January 2015 to evaluate the change compared to the baseline. (User satisfaction was equal to 7.84; change compared to the baseline: +0.2). The survey was applied to assess user satisfaction in three areas: (i) resource management performance; (ii) quality of education services; and (iii) school openness. Overall Comments Intermediate Results Indicators PHINDIRITBL  Number of regional focal-points engaged (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 17-Feb-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2017 Comments Contracts with five regional partners that have been selected to work on the project activities at local level have been extended for the second year of project implementation (Association for Democracy, Cooperation and Communication ‘Dialog’ (Cahul rayon); ‘Regional Center for Sustainable Development’ (Ungheni rayon); ‘Foundation for Advancement of Moldova’ in Chisinau (covering Chisinau municipality and Hancesti Rayon), ‘Contact –Balti’ (covering Rascani and Sangerei rayons) and Youth Resource Center ‘Dacia’ (covering Soroca and Floresti rayons). 9/28/2015 Page 5 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) PHINDIRITBL  Number of local community-level coalitions mobilized and engaged in project implementation (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 20.00 40.00 100.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 17-Dec-2018 Comments First 20 local coalitions, created in 2014 in line with the draft Education Code (EC), encompassed school director, deputy directors, one representative of local authorities, three parents, a student, two teachers, the CSO representative and business community representative. In 2015, coalitions in the new group of 20 schools were formed in line with the approved EC. PHINDIRITBL  Participants' self-assessed readiness degree (Text, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value absent low upper-low upper-medium Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments The readiness degree is estimated based on a questionnaire filled in by project regional partners. One of the main question of the assessment was: “How would you evaluate your current level of expertise needed to prepare/apply the social accountability tools (report cards, independent budget analyses, public hearings) specific to the project?” On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 – low and 5 – high) organizations assessed their level of expertise in preparing / implementing SAcc tools specific for the current project. According to second year partners' assessment, the average participants' self-assessed readiness degree is upper medium and the level of skills (as seen in the responses on the specific social accountability tools) is upper low. PHINDIRITBL  Citizens taking part or represented by CSOs in participatory budgetary cycle (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 0.00 14700.00 25000.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments Number of people who took part at the MTEF workshops and public hearings organized by the project implementation team and citizens they represented (in case of Associations). 9/28/2015 Page 6 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) PHINDIRITBL  Schools' budgets discussed (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 1.00 20.00 100.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments Public hearings took place in all 20 selected schools during the first year of project implementation. PHINDIRITBL  Feedback reports from the school management and relevant public authorities on Social Accountability Activities (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 0.00 23.00 100.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 PHINDIRITBL  Active users of the www.scoalamea.md (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 0.00 7800.00 600.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments An active user is someone who has visited ScoalaMea.md website or its pages (including http://www.budgetstories.md/bugetul-scolii- 2014/). An active user spends more than 3 minutes on the website. Average use of http://www.budgetstories.md/bugetul-scolii-2014/ - 3:38 minutes. 9/28/2015 Page 7 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) PHINDIRITBL  Citizens participating with meaningful contributions in high-level policy debates (both written and oral) (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 0.00 40.00 65.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments Number of people who took part at MTEF training sessions. PHINDIRITBL  Knowledge shared with other stakeholders nationally and internationally as part of annual conferences (Number, Custom) Baseline Actual (Previous) Actual (Current) End Target Value 0.00 0.00 0.00 200.00 Date 17-Feb-2014 10-Oct-2014 08-Sep-2015 10-Dec-2018 Comments Measured as number of conference participants. Indicator: not yet due. Overall Comments Data on Financial Performance Disbursements (by loan) Project Loan/Credit/TF Status Currency Original Revised Cancelled Disbursed Undisbursed Disbursed P147607 TF-15859 Effective USD 0.70 0.70 0.00 0.28 0.42 40% Key Dates (by loan) Project Loan/Credit/TF Status Approval Date Signing Date Effectiveness Date Orig. Closing Date Rev. Closing Date P147607 TF-15859 Effective 16-Dec-2013 20-Dec-2013 20-Dec-2013 20-Dec-2018 20-Dec-2018 Cumulative Disbursements 9/28/2015 Page 8 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy Public Disclosure Copy The World Bank Implementation Status & Results Report Empowered citizens enhancing accountability of Edu reform and quality (P147607) Restructuring History There has been no restructuring to date. Related Project(s) There are no related projects. 9/28/2015 Page 9 of 9 Public Disclosure Copy