Germans to swap debt for education program

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian and German governments will sign on Tuesday an agreement allowing the former to swap debt worth 25.6 million euros owed to Germany for an education program.

The agreement will be signed by credit agency Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW), on behalf of the German government and the Indonesian ministry of finance, the German embassy said in a statement, adding that Minister of Finance Boediono and the Charge d'Affairs ad interim of Germany, Herman Sausen, would witness the signing.

It was the first bilateral debt swap agreement to be signed by the Indonesian and German governments, the embassy said.

Under the "Debt Swap for Education" agreement, the German government will cancel 25.6 million euros (about Rp 230 billion) of Indonesian debts provided that 50 percent of that amount is invested by the Indonesian government in a program to promote science education in the country.

Both sides have decided to improve the training of science teachers at primary schools in 17 provinces of Indonesia, the embassy said.

More than 510 new training centers will be built and equipped to offer better conditions and facilities for training of science teachers, it said.

This program will be directly linked to the ongoing Indonesian-German development cooperation project, called SEQIP, which also focuses on the improvement of science teaching and learning at 33,000 schools. The SEQIP project is jointly executed by KfW, another German agency GTZ and Indonesia's Ministry of Education.