SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT GRANTS

The Government of Kosovo has received a loan from the World Bank to implement the Project for Improving the Education System in Kosovo (ESIP) which aims to support reforms in Kosovo’s education sector. School Development Grants (GDGs) is a sub-component of the ESIP project which is implemented by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) through kosovo Education Center (KEC).

The School Development Grants Project (SDG) aims to strengthen the capacities of publicly funded schools to plan and manage resources and promote civic engagement through the participation of teachers, parents and the community in planning, implementing and monitoring school activities. This sub-component will continue to increase the capacities of school leaders in planning, finance management, procurement and monitoring after a good experience within the past project (IDEP) where 207 schools received grants.

Specifically, the objectives of the GDS sub-component are:

• Strengthening the school development planning system,
• Support of selected primary schools to prepare and implement multi-year school development plans (DSP), as well as providing trainings for management, planning and self-assessment and
• Funding schools, which meet the criteria, with school development grants (GDG) in the amount of 9,000 to 15,000 US dollars (approximately 8,500 to 14,000 euros) for selected schools without competition, and US$10,000 (about 9,300 euros) for selected schools by competition.

Grant allocation is based on criteria aimed at selecting schools in rural areas and in the deep areas, which have higher proportion of socio-economically impaired groups. The selected schools are expected to prepare the SDP, in which they present their strategy for improving the quality of teaching and learning activity in their schools, and based on which they will be funded within the GDG scheme.

Selected are 140 primary and lower secondary schools (grades 0-9), which have not received grants under the previous Project for Institutional Development of Education (IDEP), and which will be able to receive non-vacancy grants within the selection method. Another 20 primary and lower secondary schools from rural and urban areas (grades 0-9), which have previously received grants within the IDEP project, will be able to submit draft proposals within the parallel grant scheme through competition or competition. GDGs will be connected, as far as possible, to current reforms, as well as training teachers to support the certification or assessment process of students (which are part of component 2 of the ESIP project). The work would also be coordinated with initiatives supported by other development partners in the field of education.

Schools with competitions will not be subject to preliminary selection criteria as schools without competitions. However, they must be preliminary beneficiaries within the IDEP project and that they can be both rural and urban. Grants are awarded mainly on merit, d.m.th. based on the quality of their project proposals.