School cash grant for June 5 roll out

Jun 01, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – The distribution of the ‘Because We Care’ per child for the year 2023 will commence on June 5, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand announced yesterday.

In a brief video posted on the Ministry’s Facebook page, the Minister said that, “We will begin the distribution of the 2023 cash grant ‘Because We Care’ on the 5^th of June, so next Monday we begin to distribute to families across this country, financial assistance for their children schooling. As you know we had promised that we would give every family a financial assistance every year.”

The minister mentioned that this year each child would be given a cash grant of $40,000. She noted that this year more than 214,000 children are eligible to receive the grant.

At this year’s presentation of the national budget, the Senior Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh had said that the ‘Because We Care’ School Grant has been increased to $35,000 per child. He noted that in Budget 2021, the grant was increased from $15,000 to $25,000 in Budget 2022 and the grant was further extended to accommodate students attending private schools.

“This will benefit over 214,000 school children in public and private schools, and will place an additional $2.1 billion in the hands of their parents,” the finance minister informed. He continued, “that the newly increased grant of $35,000 together with the uniform grant of $5,000 per child will see parents receiving $40,000 per child in total.” The two grants, he said, will transfer some $8.6B to parents of school-aged children.

Minister Manickchand went on to explained that the grant is for children attending both public and private schools. A child is eligible for the grant having been registered at their respective school. “What makes you eligible, your child would have to be going to a private or public school and be in nursery all the way up to Grade 10 or at Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE)… eligibility really means that you are on the register of a public or private school, and that you are attending school and that we got your name from your school,” minister explained.

She mentioned that as it relate to students at the CAPE level, once they are registered for the new academic year, they will receive their cash grant in or around October. The Minister concluded that the schedules would be posted on social media as to where and when parents would have to uplift their child’s grant. She asked parents and guardians to look out for the schedules as the distribution will be from June 5 to June 9.