*3 Proyecto Mejoramiento en la Enseñanza Técnica en el Área de Matemática (PROMETAM)

In Honduras, underachievement in mathematics and the national language (Spanish) has been the major reason for a large number of school drops-outs and grade repeaters. Japan had been extending cooperation to address this issue for three years since April 2003 (PROMETAM I). The project consisted of creating teachers' manuals and mathematics workbooks for children targeting students from grades one to six, training teachers in using these materials, and developing an educational evaluation method. In 2005, two years after the commencement of the project, the materials were completed and began to be distributed throughout the country as official mathematics textbooks.
Based on these achievements, PROMETAM II was launched in April 2006 as a five-year project, with Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Capacitación Educativa (INICE) (founded in FY1989 as Japan's grant aid project) as its base. PROMETAM II has two objectives: further enhancement of teacher training in Honduras and dissemination of the fruits of PROMETAM I to neighboring countries (Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Dominican Republic).