ADB Approves $200 Million Loan to Strengthen Education System in Nepal – The program will assist the implementation of the first five year of the Nepal Government’s School Education Sector Plan 2021-2030 in a sector wide approach supported by eight development partners, including ADB.  

 

Across Asia and the Pacific, education has been one of the region’s success stories. Over the past few decades, governments have expanded schooling on an unprecedented scale, and today, nine out of ten children are enrolled in primary education. But the real challenge facing the region now is not counting the number of children in school, but understanding how much they learn while they are there.

 

For the Asian Development Bank (ADB), this means shifting the focus from increased access to increased quality to be sure that education delivers the key skills and knowledge a learner needs to be successful throughout their life. It is the combination of skilled teachers, innovative and responsive systems, and tools that can measure progress that produce high-quality education.

 

Quality begins with teachers

At the Nueve de Pebrero Elementary School in Metro Manila, classes begin at sunrise. By six o’clock, hundreds of pupils fill small classrooms that run on rotating shifts throughout the day. Young teachers from the NGO Teach for the Philippines welcome students to class and guide them through their lessons with patience and energy.

 

The teachers are successful graduates who have committed to working in high-need schools for two years. For them, teaching is not just a job but an opportunity to support some of the country’s most vulnerable learners. This program, part of an ADB-funded initiative, really highlights what a difference a skilled teacher can make. It focuses on delivering leadership training and in-class coaching, helping to build a new generation of educators who are capable of delivering inclusive teaching to learners of all abilities.

 

 

Making quality measurable

 

But even the most inspiring of teachers will fall short if they work in a system that can’t measure their impact. In 2021, with support from ADB’s Knowledge Immersion Program, Teach for the Philippines took another step forward to improve education by developing a centralized data monitoring system. 

 

The initiative developed a digital platform that enables teachers and managers to access timely, consistent data on student progress. The new system has made it easier to evaluate student performance, link feedback to teacher training, and continuously improve learning outcomes. ADB has helped foster a culture of evidence by showing that quality cannot be improved if it can’t be measured.

 

 

 

 

 

Reforming systems at scale

Beyond the Philippines, ADB is helping other countries to implement nationwide reforms. In Kyrgyzstan, where almost all children attend primary school but learning outcomes lag behind international averages, the Strengthening Education System Sector Development Program is addressing quality from the ground up.

 

With ADB investment, the program has modernized curricula in mathematics and science, improved textbook quality, and upgraded the skills of 10,000 teachers through a national development plan. A greater level of attention is focused on teachers. A new ranking system that links their salaries to professional standards and monitors their career progression is helping to increase the professionalism of the teaching workforce. Thirty model schools in poor and rural areas are being transformed into innovation hubs for science, technology, and teacher training. The locations are dispersed to ensure that the positive impact reaches even the most remote classrooms.

 

Equity and resilience in learning

Despite major progress in expanding access to early years education, lower- and upper-secondary levels have far higher out-of-school rates. Too many young people, particularly those from low-income, rural, and disadvantaged communities, leave school without mastering foundational skills or developing the competencies required by today’s emerging economies.

 

In Nepal, ADB is supporting a major shift toward stronger, more equitable learning by helping the government implement its School Sector Plan 2021-2030. The Supporting the School Education Sector Plan focuses on reducing learning loss following the 2015 earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic, expanding educationl opportunities for girls, and improving teaching capacity in rural schools. It also helps the local government to plan and monitor, enabling it to report more confidently on educational outcomes. This is helping build a system that supports inclusive and sustainable growth.

 

Reaching the most remote learners

Across the region, geography itself is often the barrier to education. In the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, experienced teachers face unique challenges in reaching students spread across remote islands.

 

In the project, Improving the Quality of Basic Education in the North Pacific, ADB is supporting the improvement of literacy and numeracy through bilingual teaching materials, teacher training, and community engagement. The project builds on lessons from earlier pilot programs which showed learning outcomes significantly improved when new and updated assessment systems were implemented, and parental involvement in students’ schooling increased.

 

Data for smarter decisions

Measuring quality is not just about testing students and assessing teachers. It’s also about using key data and performance indicators to inform improvements.

 

In Bangladesh, there are nearly 20 million primary school children, and managing data across thousands of schools was a major challenge. To address this, ADB’s support as part of the Fourth Primary Education Development Program, helped the government  develop the Integrated Primary Education Management Information System (IPEMIS). The result was a comprehensive digital platform consolidating school, teacher, and student data from across the country.

 

The positive impact of IPEMIS cannot be overstated. The streamlining of data collection and reporting has improved data accuracy and cut reporting times from months to weeks. Increased engagement with real-time dashboards now helps education officers from over 65,000 schools monitor attendance, track textbook and material delivery, and make evidence-based decisions to support targeted interventions in schools. By turning fragmented information into coherent intelligence, Bangladesh is showing how data systems can enhance governance in support of quality primary education.

 

Kazakhstan, too, has taken a similar path at the secondary school level. With ADB support, the government has developed a national Automated School Quality Assessment Platform that uses big data and machine learning to analyze thousands of schools. By monitoring resources, teacher qualifications, and parental feedback into a single dynamic dashboard, the platform enables policymakers to target support where it’s needed most, ensuring information analysis translates into prioritized action.

 

Learning from beyond the region

International assessments such as the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are another way for countries to evaluate their education systems. The recent 2022 PISA results for the region revealed significant underperformance in literacy and numeracy, but highlighted success stories such as Viet Nam, whose results in mathematics were close to the OECD average. PISA is an insightful way for countries to see where education is performing well, understand where attention is still needed, and speed up improvements by implementing best practices shared by others. 

 

In the spirit of strategic cooperation, ADB and the OECD are supporting the Department of Education of the Philippines in strengthening educational measurement by revising assessment frameworks and enhancing the standardization of assessment practices. Learnings will help establish a quality roadmap for the future, and useful insights will be shared with other countries across the region.

 

From classrooms to careers

The quality of education is ultimately measured by where it leads learners. Across Asia and the Pacific, ADB-supported tracer studies have helped governments assess educational outcomes in terms of employability.

 

In Bangladesh, a national tracer study revealed strong employment outcomes for computer engineering graduates but highlighted the need for greater industry engagement to help keep courses relevant and up-to-date. A similar study in Sri Lanka found that the job placement rate for technical vocational education and training (TVET) graduates improved from 47% in 2011 to 55% in 2016, but many lacked essential skills, such as problem-solving, as well as industry experience that employers needed. Evaluations such as these provide vital feedback on graduates’ journey from classrooms to jobs, and help governments pinpoint the gaps in training and take action to close them. 

 

Sri Lanka has also prioritized quality across its TVET programs. Through ADB’s Skills Sector Enhancement Program, funding is tied to measurable improvements such as the number of accredited programs and graduate employment rates. Since the program began, TVET enrollment has increased significantly, and more than two-thirds of graduates find work within six months. This sends a clear message about how measurement can drive reform, which in turn can deliver results and lasting change.

 

Towards quality systems that learn

From teacher development projects in the Philippines to enhanced TVET programs in Sri Lanka, ADB’s work shows that putting quality at the heart of education helps people build skills and unlock opportunities. As systems become better equipped to measure learning and use data for decision-making, quality will no longer be a matter of guesswork. Evidence-based approaches will define the future of learning and work, helping to shape the progress of the next generation.