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The labor force in Liberia is quite young. Youth aged 15 to 34 constitute over a third of thepopulation in Liberia and are somewhat concentrated in urban areas, according to the 2008census. These youth represent both a demographic dividend and a concern. The educational attainment of Liberian youth is steadily improving but remains low on average.Youth recognize that their lack of skills and experience are impediments to employment.The objective of this report is to assess youth skills development in Liberia.Given the composition of Liberia’s economy and the concentration of the labor force outside formal employment, this report has a particular focus on skill development in vocational trades and the informal sector. This report comprises three analyses. Section Two constructs a profile of Liberian youth from existing administrative data are studied to enable a more detailed understanding of the current skill levels among working youth. Section Three first assesses skills development providers based on new survey data summarizes the results of original analysis carried out on data collected on a sample of 139 skill providers’ training offerings, capacity, target beneficiaries, and other criteria. Next section three goes on to present young trainees’ perceptions of skills development opportunities and limits, based on 354 interviews with recent trainees. This report contributes to the Government of Liberia’s Agenda for Transformation (AfT) and the World Bank’s Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) 2013-2017. Both recognize that inadequate skills and vulnerable employment are key constrictions on rapid, inclusive and sustainable growth.This report provides practical recommendations that align with pillars of the National Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Policy 2015-2020. This report makes recommendations specific to three pillars: promoting productivity in the agricultural sector through TVET, promoting productivity in the informal sector through TVET, and financing TVET.

The Philippines has made remarkable progress in improving the quality of basic education in recent decades. Even so, despite significant improvements in primary and secondary education, the number of students who drop out of school remains worryingly high. More than five million youths have failed to complete a basic education. Alternative Learning System (ALS) is a second-chance, informal education program operated by the Department of Education (DepEd) for out-of-school youths and adults. This report aims to assess the current implementation of ALS using a variety of sources , including recent surveys, and analyzes (a) the target populations, (b) current beneficiaries, (c) delivery modes (with a focus on learning facilitators’ contracting schemes), and (d) labor market returns to ALS. Key messages are as follows: (i) Only a small proportion of the target populations are enrolled in the ALS program, (ii) the first target groups for ALS are students who drop out of high school for financial reasons, (iii) performance-based payment is expected to improve performance, (iv) the current arrangement for monitoring activities within the ALS program can be improved, (v) labor market returns to ALS are significant only when learners successfully pass the secondary A&E exam, and (vi) small class size (fewer than 40 learners per facilitator) is more efficient. The report concludes that a holistic approach is required for a socially efficient solution for students who do not complete school and those who are at high risk. An expansion of ALS may distort incentives among students currently in school, and coordinated efforts with other programs such as the Alternative Delivery Mode are becoming increasingly important. Earlier intervention guarantees greater returns.

This paper seeks to find an empirical explanation of Vietnam's outstanding performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2012. Only a few developing countries participate in the assessment. Those who do, with the unique exception of Vietnam, are typically clustered at the lower end of the range of the Programme for International student Assessment scores. The paper compares Vietnam's performance with that of a set of seven developing countries from the 2012 assessment's data set, using a cut-off per capita GDP (in 2010 purchasing power parity dollars) of $10,000. The seven developing countries' average performance lags Vietnam's by more than 100 points. The "Vietnam effect" is difficult to unscramble, but the paper is able to explain about half of the gap between Vietnam and the seven countries. The analysis reveals that Vietnamese students may be approaching their studies with higher diligence and discipline, their parents may have higher expectations, and the parents may be following up with teachers regarding those expectations. The teachers themselves may be working in a more disciplined environment, with tabs being kept on their own performance as teachers. Vietnam may also be benefiting from investments in pre-school education and in school infrastructure that are disproportionately higher when compared with Vietnam's per capita income level.

Sri Lanka is increasingly seeking to ensure that its public school system not only delivers greater shares of students who have completed higher secondary and tertiary education, but also that all students obtain a much better education. Raising teacher effectiveness is considered as crucial for achieving these aims. This paper reviews the literature on teacher management in Sri Lanka, and points to what may be critical teacher management issues. The paper also outlines considerations and options for addressing these issues, informed by international evidence on approaches to improve teacher effectiveness.

The relative return to input-augmentation versus inefficiency-reduction strategies for improving education system performance is a key open question for education policy in low-income countries. Using a new nationally-representative panel dataset of schools across 1297 villages in India, this paper shows that the large investments over the past decade have led to substantial improvements in input-based measures of school quality, but only a modest reduction in inefficiency as measured by teacher absence. In the data, 23.6 percent of teachers were absent during unannounced visits with an associated fiscal cost of $1.5 billion/year. There are two robust correlations in the nationally-representative panel data that corroborate findings from smaller-scale experiments. First, reductions in student-teacher ratios are correlated with increased teacher absence. Second, increases in the frequency of school monitoring are strongly correlated with lower teacher absence. Simulations using these results suggest that investing in better governance by increasing the frequency of monitoring could be over ten times more cost effective at increasing teacher-student contact time (net of teacher absence) than hiring more teachers. Thus, at current margins, policies that decrease the inefficiency of public spending in India are likely to yield substantially higher returns than those that augment inputs.

This paper reports on the quality of early childhood education in rural Indonesia. On average, the paper finds that centers created under the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and Development Project provide higher quality services than other types of preschools, as measured by a comprehensive instrument of preschool quality based on direct observation of classrooms in session (the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised). The paper also examines the relationship between preschool quality and childrens early development using three commonly applied measures of quality: (i) the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised; (ii) teacher characteristics; and (iii) structural characteristics of preschool services, such as their size and amount of class time. First, correcting for measurement error using an instrumental variables approach, the findings suggest that preschool quality is a significant and meaningful positive predictor of childrens developmental outcomes. Second, the findings for teacher characteristics are mixed, suggesting that policies focused solely on hiring teachers based on experience and training will be insufficient to improve childrens learning. Instead, policies must address the quality of professional development activities for teachers. Third, the amount of class time spent in early childhood programs is a significant positive predictor of children’s developmental outcomes. This suggests that in rural Indonesia—where early childhood programs are relatively low dose—children are likely to benefit from attending longer hours of preschool, either playgroups or kindergartens. Lastly, the paper compares items in the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised with Indonesias national minimum service standards for early childhood education and development, and finds that the relationship between this alternative, context-appropriate measure of preschool quality and children’s development outcomes strongly corroborates the earlier conclusions.

This paper seeks to understand what drove the trends in learning outcomes in Argentina between 2000 and 2012, using data from four rounds of the Program for International Student Assessment. A year-specific education production function is estimated and its results used to decompose the changes in learning outcomes into changes in inputs, parameters, and residuals via microsimulations. Estimates of the production function show the importance of socioeconomic status, gender, school autonomy, and teacher qualifications to determine learning outcomes. Despite an important increase in the level of resources invested in public education, learning outcomes in public schools decreased vis-à-vis private schools. According to the results presented here, the increase in the number of teachers in the system, pushing the pupil-teacher ratio in Argentina to 11, had no effect on learning outcomes. The microsimulation further confirms that changes in the system’s ability to transform inputs into outcomes accounted for most of the changes in test scores. Overall, the study shows the ineffectiveness of input-based education policies to improve learning outcomes in Argentina.

This paper analyzes the relation between public, education-related infrastructure and the quality of education in schools. The analysis uses a case study of the establishment of two large, high-quality public libraries in low-income areas in Bogotá, Colombia. It assesses the impact of these libraries on the quality of education by comparing national test scores (SABER 11) for schools close to and far from the libraries before (2000–02) and after (2003–08) the libraries were opened. The paper introduces a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition on difference-in-differences estimates to assess whether variation of traditional determinants of mathematics, verbal, and science test scores explains the estimates. The analysis finds differences that are not statistically different from zero that could be attributed to the establishment of the libraries. These results are robust to alternative specifications, a synthetic control approach, and an alternative measure of distance.

In 2009, the Mexican state of Colima implemented a low-stakes accountability intervention with diagnostic feedback among 108 public primary schools with the lowest test scores in the national student assessment. A difference-in-difference and a regression discontinuity design are used to identify the effects of the intervention on learning outcomes. The two alternative strategies consistently show that the intervention increased test scores by 0.12 standard deviations only a few months after the program was launched. When students, teachers, and parents in a school know that their scores are low, and this triggers a process of self-evaluation and analysis, the process itself may lead to an improvement in learning outcomes. Information on quality, without punitive measures but within a supportive and collaborative environment, appears to be sufficient to improve learning outcomes.

Traditional benchmarks to assess performance rely on unconditional rankings or regional averages. This paper uses a recently developed methodology based on quantile regressions and initial conditions to propose alternative benchmarks for social sectors in Kyrgyz Republic. Covering a wide set of indicators, the analysis reveals mixed results for Kyrgyz Republic. The country has made important strides in many social areas, with outstanding results in reducing child mortality and undernourishment. However, other areas are still key challenges and demand further attention and resources, as evidenced by the underachievement in maternal mortality, educational performance, and increasing informality in labor markets.

This study examines the effects of the extension of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey in 1997—which involved substantial investment in school infrastructure—on schooling outcomes and, in particular, on the equality of these outcomes between men and women, and urban and rural residents using the Turkish Demographic and Health Surveys. This policy is peculiar because it also changes the sheepskin effects (signaling effects) of schooling, through its redefinition of the schooling tiers. The policy is also interesting due to its large spillover effects on post-compulsory schooling as well as its remarkable overall effect; for instance, we find that the completed years of schooling by age 17 increases by 1.5 years for rural women. The policy equalizes the educational attainment of urban and rural children substantially. The urban-rural gap in the completed years of schooling at age 17 falls by 0.5 years for men and by 0.7 to 0.8 years for women. However, there is no evidence of a narrowing gender gap with the policy. On the contrary, the gender gap in urban areas in post-compulsory schooling widens.

Panama has experienced impressive and significant economic growth, emerging as one of the better performers in Central America in recent years and one of the fastest growing economies worldwide. From 2003 to 2013, Panama has averaged an annual GDP growth rate of approximately 7 percent, surpassing the average GDP growth in Central America. It has also emerged as one of the fastest growing economies worldwide. Even during the economic crisis of 2008-2009, its economy continued to grow albeit at a lower rate. This note recommends that Panama prioritize three main aspects: a) improving the effectiveness of social public spending by further enhancing the pro-poor and pro-indigenous features of targeting mechanisms; b) reducing inefficiencies in the various sectors, for example, by improving the coordination between the Ministries of Education, Health, Social Development, and CSS to minimize duplication of efforts and resources; and c) strengthening planning, budgeting, and information tools and systems, legislation, and institutions to support implementation and track progress toward Government goals.

El Salvador’s development over the past decade has been dichotomous. On the one hand, economic growth has remained persistently low, employment and labor force participation have barely increased, and progress on poverty reduction has slowed. On the other hand, inequality has fallen, and shared prosperity improved together with advances in many social indicators, such as pre-primary enrollment rates, access to prenatal care, immunizations, and water and sanitation. The increase in the use of social spending, which now accounts for 12.4 percent of GDP, together with an improvement in the quality of social spending, explain at least part of this dichotomy of redistributive and social gains despite low growth, a tight fiscal situation and generally low government revenues and spending. Looking forward, the key challenges El Salvador faces are related to continuing improving the quality and efficiency in the social sectors, while maintaining the overall level of social spending within an increasingly constrained fiscal environment, where fiscal constraints, low revenues, and the need to cut the deficit by 3 percent of GDP are significant elements, as well. Priority will have to be given to reallocations and improvements within the spending envelope for the social sectors to maximize impact. This document analyzes social spending for El Salvador for the education, health and social protection and labor sectors in depth and explores a series of policy options for El Salvador to reallocate social spending for more effective impacts, to enhance and reform social policies and social service delivery, and to improve the management of public spending and budget execution in the social sectors.

Honduras has experienced moderate economic growth in the past decade, in line with the rest of the region. Despite this growth track record, limited opportunities for decent jobs for the majority of workers have resulted in stagnant poverty and inequality rates that are still the highest in Central America (CA). In parallel, progress in human development indicators has also been mixed in the last decade. In education, while primary enrollment has significantly increased, low coverage at all other levels of education, inequalities in access and low quality persist. In health, Honduras is close to achieving the 2015 child mortality Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but maternal mortality, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), and violence pose additional challenges. And despite advances in setting up a social protection system, fiscal sustainability and lack of coordination among interventions prevail, undermining poverty reduction efforts. The ability of the Honduras government to expand safety nets, to increase the access and quality of public education and health services, to engage in active labor market policies, and to improve human development indicators in general, remains limited for a number of reasons. First, overall real social public spending has been on the decline in the last few years. Second, low revenues and fiscal deterioration pose challenges to adequately financing needed social sector improvements. Third, challenges in budget formulation and execution (mainly due to institutional factors) also diminish the impact of social spending. But more importantly, Honduras needs to significantly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its social spending. This note argues that moving forward Honduras should prioritize three main aspects: a) to rationalize and increase the effectiveness of social public spending by enhancing the pro-poor features of targeting mechanisms; b) to significantly redress the imbalance between recurrent spending, especially the wage bill, and capital expenditure; and c) to continue strengthening information systems tools, legislation, and institutions in an effort to consolidate programs into fewer and higher impact interventions. Sector-specific challenges aligned with these broad objectives are addressed below.

The evolution of Costa Rica’s social sectors over the past decade has been dichotomous. On the one hand, economic growth has remained relatively high, however poverty and inequality have not declined (moreover, they have increased), and persistent employment challenges remain. On the other hand, the country has continued experiences advances in many social indicators, such as pre-primary and tertiary enrollment rates, access to improved sanitation, and labor force participation, though not in others (secondary school completion, immunizations, employment). Higher economic growth and (to a lesser extent) revenues seem to have allowed a substantial increase in public social spending. Looking forward, the key challenges Costa Rica faces are related to continuing improving the quality and efficiency in the social sectors, while improving targeting to serve the most in need, in a tight and severe fiscal context. To expand coverage of excluded population, priority will have to be given to reallocations and improvements within the spending envelope for the social sectors to maximize impact. With a fiscal deficit of more than 6 percent of GDP, further expanding public social spending is no longer an option and budget cuts are looming. Improvements in public spending management and budget execution, including the need of institutional reform to consolidate programs and improve coordination among executing agencies is equally important. In a country that has long been the champion in expanding universal welfare state, sustainability concerns will imply that hard fiscal decisions would need to be made to increase the social returns of budget allocation.

Over the past two and a half decades, Thailand has made great progress in expanding basic education, closing the gap in attendance between socioeconomic groups, and putting more focus on the quality of education. Building on this progress, it appears that even more can be done to maximize the potential of Thailand’s students to become productive workforce participants. Functional illiteracy can be seen across the various types of schools in Thailand, indicating that there are still system-wide issues affecting the quality of education. Improving educational outcomes among these poorer-performing students can have major impacts at the individual level and for Thailand’s economic growth prospects. Having a workforce with stronger analytical reasoning and problem solving skills - skills that extend well beyond simply being functionally literate - can help Thailand move up the value-added ladder to a more knowledge-based economy. Therefore, addressing the remaining gaps will enable Thailand to improve its competitiveness, economic growth, and prosperity.

This paper presents evidence from the first three years of a randomized controlled trial of a government-administered pilot teacher performance pay program in Punjab, Pakistan. The program offers yearly cash bonuses to teachers in a sample of public primary schools with the lowest mean student exam scores in the province. Bonuses are linked to three school-level indicators: the gain in student exam scores, the gain in school enrollment, and the level of student exam participation. Bonus receipt and size are also randomly assigned across schools according to whether or not the teacher is the school’s head. On average, the program increases school enrollment by 4.1 percent and student exam participation rates by 3.4 percentage points, both in the third year. The analysis does not find that the program increases student exam scores in any year. Mean impacts are similar across program variants. The positive mean impact on school enrollment is mainly seen in urban schools and the positive mean impact on student exam participation rates is only seen in rural schools.

The main objective of the report is to provide recommendations for policy makers and sector managers to help improve service delivery and the resultant outcomes in primary education. The fundamental premise of this analysis stems from Punjab Social Sector Public Expenditure Review conducted in FY2013.

Education systems in developing countries are often centrally managed in a top-down structure. In environments where schools have different needs and where localized information plays an important role, empowerment of the local community may be attractive, but low levels of human capital at the local level may offset gains from local information. This paper reports the results of a four-year, large-scale experiment that provided a grant and comprehensive school management training to principals, teachers, and community representatives in a set of schools. To separate the effect of the training from the grant, a second set of schools received the grant only with no training. A third set of schools served as a control group and received neither intervention. Each of 273 Gambian primary schools were randomized to one of the three groups. The program was implemented through the government education system. Three to four years into the program, the full intervention led to a 21 percent reduction in student absenteeism and a 23 percent reduction in teacher absenteeism, but produced no impact on student test scores. The effect of the full program on learning outcomes is strongly mediated by baseline local capacity, as measured by adult literacy. This result suggests that, in villages with high literacy, the program may yield gains on students learning outcomes. Receiving the grant alone had no impact on either test scores or student participation.

The Service Delivery Indicators (SDI) provide a set of metrics for benchmarking service delivery performance in education and health. The overall objective of the indicators is to gauge the quality of service delivery in primary education and basic health services. The indicators enable the identification of gaps and tracking of progress over time and across countries. It is envisaged that the broad availability, high public awareness and a persistent focus on the indicators will mobilize policymakers, citizens, service providers, donors and other stakeholders for action to improve the quality of services and ultimately to improve development outcomes and social welfare. This report presents the findings from the implementation of the Service Delivery Indicators in the Education sector in Tanzania in 2014. Survey implementation was preceded by an extensive consultation with Government and key stakeholders on survey design, sampling, and adaptation of survey instruments. Pre-testing of the survey instruments, enumerator training, and fieldwork took place in 2014. In conclusion, comparing the 2010 and 2014 SDI surveys, one clearly notices that Tanzania has made substantial progress in some areas, but there are still remaining gaps. Also, the achieved progress is from a very low base and there is still quite a bit of room for the Tanzanian education system to deliver quality to its pupils and get them prepared and equipped to face competition in the national, regional, and international labor markets.

In 2011, the World Bank Group commenced a multi-year program designed to support countries in systematically examining and strengthening the performance of their education systems. Part of the World Bank’s new education sector strategy, this evidence based initiative, called saber systems approach for better education results (SABER), is building a toolkit of diagnostics for examining education systems and their component policy domains against global standards, best practices, and in comparison with the policies and practices of countries around the world. By leveraging this global knowledge, the SABER tools fill a gap in the availability of data and evidence on what matters most to improve the quality of education and achievement of better results. This report discusses the results of applying the SABER school autonomy and accountability (SAA) tool in Bulgaria.

This report presents results of the application of SABER teachers in Papua New Guinea. It describes Papua New Guinea’s performance in each of the eight teacher policy goals, alongside comparative information on education systems that have consistently scored highly on international student achievement tests and have participated in SABER-Teachers. Additional detailed descriptive information on the teachers policies of the education systems of Papua New Guinea and other education systems can be found on the SABER-teachers website.

Investments in education, health and social protection are the key to improving the state of human development in any society. In recent years, Nepal too has invested heavily in these sectors, particularly in education and health. This note provides an overview of the progress and current state of access and equity in these three sectors. It also presents evidence on some aspects of quality in the education and social protection sectors. While the country has made substantial improvements in different indicators of access at the aggregate level, disaggregated data show that disparities in access continue to exist across demographic and geographical dimensions. There is some evidence of improvement in the quality of educational inputs over the years, but the quality of outcomes remains poor.

This report presents an analysis of the early childhood development (ECD) programs and policies that affect young children in the Gambia and recommendations to move forward. This report is part of a series of reports prepared by the World Bank using the systems approach for better education results (SABER) - ECD framework and includes analysis of early learning, health, nutrition, and social and child protection policies, and interventions in the Gambia, along with regional and international comparisons.

Southeast Sulawesi is one of Indonesia's developing provinces and over the past five years has achieved one of the country's highest growth rates. In 2010, Southeast Sulawesi's economy grew at 8.2percent the third fastest in Indonesia. The poverty rate has declined significantly in the past 10 years and the unemployment rate is one the lowest in Indonesia. Per capita expenditure in Southeast Sulawesi has increased nine-fold compared to pre decentralization rates Southeast Sulawesi's consolidated per capita expenditure now falls in the top 10 in Indonesia. However, Southeast Sulawesi is still facing a range of challenges. The Human Development Index (HDI) has continued to lag at 25th in Indonesia over the past five years. Although regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown rapidly, in real per capita terms it is still far below the national provincial average. Southeast Sulawesi' poverty rate also remains above the national average. It will be important for the high and growing rate of per capita expenditure to be matched with improvements in public financial management capacity within the local government. In the context of overcoming these challenges and capitalizing on expanding opportunities, the local governments in Southeast Sulawesi and in particular the provincial government need to work harder to make the most of its budgetary resources. The development agenda and programs must be sharpened and budget allocations must be optimized to achieve development targets, especially in the strategic sectors of education, health, infrastructure and agriculture. This report contains findings and recommendations intended to support sub national governments in Southeast Sulawesi province to enhance their public financial management performance; improve the quality of evidence based planning and budgeting; and accelerate the achievement of existing development targets.

Providing at least basic education to all children especially those coming from poor or disadvantaged families is an important factor for increasing chances to improve their lives in the future. Many countries recognize the need to better educate their populations and do so by trying to improve the equity and quality while taking care of efficiency. The provision of equal educational opportunities is a challenge for every society, where specific solutions typically depend on a number of factors. The intention of this document is to raise awareness and provide support to decision makers in planning the measures that will secure access to quality education for all children above all to those who are under higher risk of dropping out of the education system through a set of transportation and education policy measures. The document aims to equip municipal authorities, as well as transport and education stakeholders, with a systemized approach for assessing the access and accessibility of education services, and tools for the selection of the most appropriate options for improvements. The document is organized as follows: chapter one provides a short introductory review of the demographic changes in South East Europe (SEE) countries; chapter two is a valuable source of information on the experiences of countries in the SEE region and worldwide; chapter three gives decision-making framework for local authorities; chapter four provides a summary and a set of recommendations for local- and national-level authorities on the most effective ways of fulfilling legal obligations and ensuring a basic children's right- access to education; chapter five and six sets paths for making chosen policy options sustainable and for future developments based on innovative transport and education approaches and proven practices; and chapter seven gives literature and data sources.

This report documents for the first time in over a decade the current stock of the publicly financed health workforce in PNG and their characteristics and deployment across the country by type of health facility and health cadre. It also documents the capacity of the health-related training institutions and presents the results of an important survey of health training institutions which enable unit costs, staffing and other aspects of the institutions to be analyzed together with a qualitative assessment of the quality of students and of facilities by training school principals. The report presents a set of five demand scenarios and draws out the implications for the health training system and of the health budget for these scenarios. The National Health Plan 2011-2020 (NHP) recognizes that the emerging crisis in the health human resources area is a critical issue confronting any viable strategy designed to implement the objectives it has set for the health sector. This report helps document the nature of this emerging crisis and makes specific recommendations on the way forward.

The 'Quality of Education in Madrasah' (QEM) study aimed to provide high quality research into various dimensions of quality of education in Indonesian Madrasahs. The study focused on final year students in Islamic Junior Secondary Schools (Madrasah Tsanawiyah, MT). One hundred and fifty MTs were sampled from across Indonesia, with equal numbers selected from Java and the East and West of the country. Systematically selected intact classes were sampled within schools, involving a total of 6,233 students. Eight instruments were developed for use in the study. Four were achievement tests designed to assess performance in Mathematics, Science, Indonesian and English. Australian Council for Educational Research's (ACER's) School Life Questionnaire (SLQ) was used as an affective measure of school quality. ACER developed an instrument to assess student background characteristics, and a Principal Interview Schedule and a School Inventory were also developed by ACER to collect information on MTs. Mean scores showed that students in Java performed better than students in the East and West regions on each of the four achievement tests, with students in the West performing marginally better than students in the East on all tests. The largest correlations between student background factors and achievement across the three regions were observed for number of home resources and study materials available to students.

This Country Status Report (CSR) for Liberia is part of an ongoing series of country specific reports being prepared by the World Bank in collaboration with governments and development partners. The series aims to enhance the knowledge base for policy development. This report is intended to help engage a diverse audience on issues and policies in the education sector and to develop a shared vision for the future of Liberia. It is the first sector-wide report produced on the education system in Liberia since the end of the war. A policy options matrix follows the executive summary, which will provide government and partners with guidance on the key priorities to tackle. Besides consolidating information in a policy-relevant manner, this CSR makes a unique contribution to the education knowledge base by documenting not only traditional and basic indicators, such as gross enrollment rates and retention, but also examining the performance of the education system in terms of access, quality, equity, and resource allocation and utilization. The report also includes chapters on education governance and teacher management. This report highlights the country's significant education progress since the end of the 14-year civil war in 2003 and the challenges that need to be addressed.