$1B allocation for online scholarships

Feb 16, 2021 News

Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh.

Kaieteur News – The Irfaan Ali administration is aiming to provide a large number of online scholarships through an allocation of $1 billion in this year’s National Budget.
The revelation was made by Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh. While presenting the National Budget last Friday in the National Assembly, Dr. Singh said that the government is hoping to deliver an online learning institute with the vision of having a top-tier education system. The institute will deliver 20,000 scholarships over the next five years and, this year, the government plans to begin the execution of the initiative catering for the provision of over 4,500 scholarships.
“In 2021, we plan to begin execution of this initiative, catering for the provision of over 4,500 scholarships through a multi-agency formulation including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Service and the Ministry of Labour,” Dr. Singh announced.
Last year, His Excellency, Irfaan Ali, had disclosed that his administration would be looking to distribute some 5,000 online scholarships this year. He had also stated that his administration will deliver its promise in the manifesto, to deliver the 20,000 online scholarships over the next five years, starting from this year.
At the opening ceremony of the Dr. Yesu Persaud Clinical Centre, he said, “We are going to grant 20,000 scholarships across our country, in every single field from next year…the first 5,000 will be made available next year, and we are already in discussion with more than 10 universities across the world.”
Further, even though there will be requirements to be a recipient of the scholarships, vulnerable persons will also receive some form of preference as the government aims to allow vulnerable persons across the country to access tertiary education. This was stated by the Minister of Public Service, Sonia Parag.
Meanwhile, Dr. Singh said during his budget speech that, the Government’s collaboration with the Commonwealth of Learning and Coursera has already allowed it to offer more than 4,000 free online courses from various universities around the world. According to Dr. Singh, 64,605 citizens are benefitting from online courses offered by these two entities of which to date, 8,481 participants are teachers who have since registered or participated in at least one course.

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