The Grant Agreement (G/A) for the “Programme for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Schools in Flood and Landslide Affected Areas” was successfully concluded between Aung Than Oo, Director General, Department of Basic Education, Ministry of Education and Mr. Keiichiro Nakazawa, Chief Representative,Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Myanmar Office on December 22, 2015. It follows the signing of Exchange of Notes (E/N) between the two governments of Japan and Myanmar on the same day. Under this Agreement, JICA will provide up to one and half billion Japanese Yen (approximately 16,080,000,000 Kyats) for the program to reconstruct and rehabilitate the schools in flood and landslide affected areas as stated in the recovery and reconstruction strategy of the Ministry of Education with the “Build Back Better (BBB)” principles. The “Build Back Better ” (BBB) principles which ensure (1) Schools that are resilient to future disasters in line with appropriate standards such as resilient buildings with safe and adequately sized staircases, necessary elevation for schools in delta areas, and improved WASH facilities, etc. And (2) Schools that have better learning environment under ongoing educational reforms (Such as additional classrooms for kindergarten in primary schools and post-primary schools, teacher’s room, good-quality classroom furniture, houses for headmaster and teacher with security where necessary, etc). The grant will cover about one hundred and seventy thousand (170,000) students in schools affected by the floods and landslides, so that the students can study without difficulty as early as possible.
JICA has also been providing technical support to the Ministry of Education to develop new primary education curriculum and textbooks. The new curriculum intends to integrate Disaster Risk Reduction and resilience and to give more focus on various national and global issues in the long term.
