Education Minister takes $10,000 grant consultation to Linden
July 20, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under News, Source - Kaieteur News
“Our Government is one that matches its words with action,” was the assertion of Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, as she addressed a gathering of education stakeholders in Linden on Friday.
Education Minister (standing) addresses the gathering at the Lichas Hall consultation.
The Minister was at the time speaking at a consultation held at the Lichas Hall to discuss, among other issues, the $10,000 grant Government promised in the 2014 National Budget for each child attending public school.
Moreover, the Minister told the meeting of mainly parents “for the first time in the history of Guyana, and as the first country in this Region, the Government will be giving every single child in the public school $10,000 per child.”
The consultation was the latest in a series of consultations to discuss the method by which parents would prefer to receive the assure grant.
Already consultations have been held in Regions Two, Four and Six, and the parents and guardians of children of more than 122 schools have been targeted.
Thus far, most parents consulted with across the country have agreed to receive the grant in cash, which should be payable by mid-September, according to Minister Manickchand.
Of the $220 Billion national budget, the education sector was awarded a whopping $32.3 B representing the largest allocation to a single sector.
Moreover, Manickchand underscored Friday that “this Government has been giving a significant portion of its national budget towards education.”
She recalled that last year 15.9 per cent of the national budget was spent on education, which can easily be regarded as a sizeable amount for any country.
She said that Guyana currently ranks very high when it comes to spending in education. Substantial expenditure in this area, the Minister said, translates to a number of positive developmental changes. Among them, the move from 30 per cent trained teachers to 70 per cent trained teachers, a disclosure that spurred a bout of applause from the sizeable audience in attendance.
“You in Linden, you are special, because you have almost 100 per cent trained teachers in primary and you are very close to that in secondary,” added Manickchand, as she emphasized the importance of trained teachers in front of a classroom.
“Your child is more likely to have a good education (with a trained teacher) but that is not to say that untrained teachers don’t do well, because I have seen some untrained teachers who do fantastic work,” asserted the Education Minister.
Minister Manickchand meets with some young children and their parents in Linden yesterday.
She said the most tangible way of measuring what is being done by the sector is through results. As such she asserted that the results reveal that not only more children are passing the National Grade Six Assessment, but those who are passing are drawn from across the country even at the higher levels.
The Minister said that at the secondary level, students are performing exceptionally well, both on a national and regional scale. This she attributed to a move by the Ministry to ensure that there is equity in the delivery of education.
“We are not where we want to be, not by a long shot, but now we are much better off…” the Minister stressed, as she detailed the percentage pass rate in various subject areas.
But despite the fact that Guyana has been able to record noticeable and consistent improvement over the past decade, Minister Manickchand disclosed that Government is prepared to help further improve the lives of not only students but that of families.
It was against this background, she said, that the uniform programme was introduced two years ago. However, initially this facility was only accessible by some parents.
That initiative, Manickchand recalled, was undertaken under the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, which she headed at the time as part of a poverty reduction strategy.
And according to the Minister, implementing the programme was hard, as it was not afforded to all families.
“We had to decide who to give it to…so the best thing we thought of was to give it to every child who was on public assistance,” informed the Minister. This however opened the flood gates.
But it was because of the evident economical growth of the country, Manickchand said, that today all children on the registers in nursery, primary and secondary level schools are able to benefit from the uniform programme.
And according to the Minister, moves will be sustained by Government to ensure that students’ wellbeing, as well as that of their families, is improved as Guyana moves along a developmental course.
Another consultation was held on Friday at the Wisburg Secondary School at Wismar, a forum that was similarly attended as the one held earlier at the Lichas Hall.