A Plan to Improve School Education Was Scarcely Implemented and Mostly in Non-Priority Schools
<p><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">The Project for Rural Education Improvement was supported by BIRF (for its acronym in Spanish) and financed through an agreement with the Department of Education. The underprivileged areas were in the Northwest and Northeast of Argentina; however, they were also the Schools to show less progress within the plan. The Watchdog detected underspendment of the budget and lack of criteria for choosing schools and construction jobs.</span></p> <div> </div>
The Project for Rural Education Improvement’s (PROMER, for its acronym in Spanish) main objective is to optimize the Education in the rural sites. However, as stated by the General Auditor's Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish), improvement was seen in only 3% of the schools in Argentina. The watchdog report, which assesses the period from 2006-2011, says that 1002 project drafts were drawn but only "519 were carried out, which means that the demand was met only for 52% of the schools", which means that in the entire country only 3% of schools improved.
According to the Survey of Rural Schools in Argentina "8.5% of the school population attends rural settlements," for example, about 900,000 students are attending between 15,500 and 16,800 schools. Of these, most are concentrated in regions of the Northeastern and Northwestern regions, representing almost 60% and making it a top priority area for the projects. 91.5% of funds are designed to improve the quality and coverage of rural education, 65% would go especially to regions of the Northeastern and Northwestern. But at this point the AGN detected underspending of funds. Since December 31st, 2011 only 58.59% has been used.
On the other hand the Pampa, Patagonia, and Cuyo region "was planned an allocation of 35% of the budget and ended up getting 41%." It is important to note that this contributes to a situation of greater inequality. In terms of implementation of construction jobs the situation is worthy of an upside down world. In Santa Cruz, "a state that is not a priority due to important oil revenues," jobs were done in nine out of the 32 rural schools, which means in 28% of the schools. In contrast, in Santiago del Estero, part of the NOA, 6 jobs were implemented out of the 1,170 educational institutions, so only 0.5%.
The Auditors also emphasized the State of Corrientes "primarily because of the deviation of funds that exist there." As of December 2011 there were 17 schools taken over by the project, of which 13 were completed, three in execution and the remaining were still in the bidding process.
Following this scenario, the AGN stated that "PROMER has a very low impact in this jurisdiction" and that less than 2% of schools were actually being considered". It’s important to add that only 32% of the budget was actually used. The watchdog stated that "the percentage of unsatisfied demand is very important and, consequently, the increase in inequality."
About the jobs in general, the Audit team noted that "there are no mechanisms of control over the States in the selection process as well as in the definition of the works to be financed, which translates to not having any certainty about the correct prioritization of schools and/or constructions".
PROMER’s main goal is to "support the National Government's policy to improve the coverage, efficiency, and quality of the educational system of Argentina, and their management through capacity building regulations, planning, reporting, monitoring, and evaluation at National and State levels."
Maneuvering
The agreement signed by the Department of Education with BIRF, for $150 million dollars was so the program would be carried out up to 2011. However, in April 2010, both sides agreed to extend the program for two years and a half "to give the government enough time to complete all activities of the plan." But to the AGN this extension meant a whole lot more. It is also "an indicator of lack of efficiency", because if one analyzes the financial statements it’s clear that there is "an underspending of $46 million" which results in a commission payment of $452,900".