ISLAMABAD, Feb 6: Pakistan is seeking a soft investment loan of $300 million from the World Bank for the extension of an education sector project in Sindh to be carried out over a period of 2013-17 to raise school participation by improving sector governance and accountability and measure student achievement, it was learnt here on Wednesday.

The loan sought from the World Bank-affiliate International Development Association (IDA) will be utilised for the second phase of Sindh Education Sector project, for which the Sindh government will allocate $2300 million.

The Sindh government views poor sector governance and accountability and weak administrative systems as the principal problem in public education in the province. Under the second phase of the project, the provincial government aims to intensify efforts to address this problem in order to improve the quality of service delivery.

The Sindh government launched the Sindh Education Sector Reform project in 2007-08 for primary and secondary education, reflecting an important shift from previous education development efforts – to maximise the gains from any given level of expenditures, inputs, and benefits principally by strengthening governance and accountability.

The World Bank says that the Sindh education project was a results-based project, with 98 per cent of its credit amount of $300 million conditioned on the Sindh government satisfactorily complying with the credit covenants and meeting disbursement-linked indicators, which were programme implementation performance and progress targets agreed with the government.