AKIPRESS.COM - A 8.05 million euro tranche was received by the treasury account of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic from the European Union as budget support grant for education sector on December 23.

This is the first payment out of a 32 million euro allocated for the budget support programme to help the Kyrgyz Government implement its Education Development Strategy 2020 and the Action Plan 2018-2020.

The aim is to develop Education Management Information System, improve educational quality and student assessment system, promote multilingual education and strengthen public financial management. Furthermore, in response to the Kyrgyz Parliament requirements raised during the Programme ratification process, the granted funds would be earmarked, to education quality improvement, textbooks and Internet access at all schools.

In addition, the European Union provides policy advice, technical assistance and training to the staff of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education and Science as a complement to the budget support.

The Financial Agreement on provision of the funds was signed during the visit of former HRVP Federica Mogherini to Bishkek in July 2019. To note, it is the second part of the programme, the first one was completed in 2014-2018 with 32 million euros paid as budget support for education sector.

This budget support has been provided to the Kyrgyz Republic within the Multiannual Indicative Programme for 2014-2020. The MIP includes the education as one of three focal sectors of the EU bilateral development assistance with the total budget of 72 million euros. Two other sectors, RuLe of Law and Intergrated Rural Development have budgets totalling to 32 million euros and 72 million euros.