The education cash grant

Aug 10, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News – The PPP/C government is milking the distribution of the education cash grant to the maximum. Ministers are turning up at schools where the distribution is taking place, even to the point of spending thousands of dollars to fly into hinterland locations in order to gain maximum political capital.
It has become a political spectacle. Parents, whose time is precious, have to sit impatiently and wait while the circus takes place around them. They are forced to endure long, boring political sermons from Ministers and then a cultural extravaganza put on, not for their benefit, but to patronise the minister or ministers in attendance.
The PPP/C introduced the education cash grant as vote- enticing measure in the run up to the 2014 elections. It did not bring them the votes which they needed to return to office; instead they were given the boot and kicked into the Opposition benches.
The cash grant was inequitable. When it started it was G$10,000 per year. And both paupers and millionaires benefited. And since the cash grant was then redeemable at some businesses, there was a dividend enjoyed by the business class. In fact, some unscrupulous businesses charged a commission for cashing the grant.
The other ancillary measure which accompanied the cash grant was the One Laptop per Family Initiative. This also failed to prevent the PPP/C from losing the 2015 elections.
The APNU+AFC quickly dismantled both initiatives when they took office in May 2015 with one Minister going as far as accusing the PPP/C of using the education cash grant as a vote-buying measure. The APNU+AFC had further said that it had evidence that the cash grant was intended to be a one-off payment since it was unsustainable. But the Coalition never produced the evidence which it said was in its possession.
Early in its term, the Minister of Education of the APNU+AFC government, Dr. Rupert Roopnarine, had said that the government had not yet made a decision on whether to continue with the cash grant. And later in an address to the National Assembly he said that the cash grant had not met its objectives, but he did not expound on how he arrived at this assessment.
The APNU+AFC had launched a Commission of Inquiry into education. While it was reported that a preliminary report had been submitted, it is still unclear what has become of the final report and whether it remains gathering dust. This report would hardly have ignored pronouncing on the concept of an education cash grant and other supportive measures.
But unwisely the APNU+AFC failed to replace both of these measures with initiatives of its own. And this has created the opportunity for the PPP/C to capitalise on the public goodwill emanating from the present pay out of the G$15,000.
On the campaign trail, the APNU+AFC have promised the payment of a cash grant if it was returned to office. But its proposal was modelled partly after the Bolsa Família Initiative in Brazil which pays grants to families on condition that their children attend school, and are vaccinated… yes vaccinated.
The cash grant is back. It has now been increased and there is a promise that it will be increased incrementally to $50,000 per year by 2025. No wonder even the super-rich who would have previously been embarrassed to be seen uplifting a G$10,000 voucher are now standing in line to receive the $15,000 cash grant and the G$4,000 uniform allowance.
One of the criticisms now emerging from the APNU+AFC camp is that the pay out will create a dependency syndrome. But its proposal for making cash grants conditional on school attendance could equally be accused of encouraging dependency.
Concerns have also been expressed about transparency. A large number of children belong to single parent families and there have been reports of children living with one parent but the other parent collecting the cash grant.
Then there is the concern about the cost of the initiative. To graduate to an annual $50,000 per student is expected to cost the Treasury more than G$10B each year. That is quite a massive sum considering the fact, that tens of thousands of children still do not have access to internet or to a tablet or computer to benefit from online learning.
Recently, one teacher complained bitterly about the poor online attendance of his students. Only a small fraction of his students are making use of his online teaching. Poor parents cannot afford the $8,000 per month required for internet, plus the cost of a proper computer, plus the cost of uniforms for when school reopens.
The education cash grant would have been better conceived as a poverty-reduction measure rather than a support for education. But do not tell that to the blow-blow brigade in the PPP/C government. They are quite happy with the public relations returns of this initiative rather than with any resulting educational improvements.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---