$135.2B budgeted for education sector in 2024

Jan 16, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News – To further realise its vision of a world class education in the country, the government on Monday announced that this year the education sector has been allocated $135.2 billion.

Senior Minister in the Office of the President with the responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh during his $1.146 trillion Budget presentation in the National Assembly, revealed that a sum of $28.7 billion has been budgeted towards the construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of school buildings and educational facilities across the country.

Kaieteur News understands that in 2023, the sum of $105 billion was spent by the education sector to implement the sector’s various initiatives.

Having already acquired universal primary education in the country, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand had mentioned before that the country is on its way of achieving universal secondary access to education. In achieving this, the government through the ministry started a massive roll out of projects in constructing and completing secondary schools across the country.

Schools that have been completed are Abram Zuil, Good Hope, Yarrowkabra and St. Roses High and annexes at the Bishops’ High and Queen’s College. Works already started on the Christ Church Secondary School, Hosororo, Karasabai, North Ruimveldt, North West, St. Mary’s and Tuschen secondary schools as well as St. George’s High.

Continuing the establishment of new secondary schools in the country, this year works will begin at Aishalton, Christianburg, Jawalla, Kopinang, and Micobie, and a total of $16 billion has been allocated for this.

In terms of primary schools, Minister Singh briefed that in 2024, construction will begin at Augsbury, Kuribrong, Lake Mainstay, Pennack and Red Creek, amongst others, and over $3.1 billion has been budgeted for these school buildings.

Similarly, construction will begin at nursery schools at Foulis, Mibicuri and Tuschen and over $3 billion has been budgeted towards this. This all forms part of the $28.7 billion allocation.

Further, of the $135.2 billion allocation, money will go towards promoting attendance and attentiveness through Cash Transfers and School Feeding programme. In this regard, Minister Singh said that $3.1billion has been allocated for the distribution of school grants for teachers to purchase supplies for their classrooms. This initiative started in 2023.

Dr. Singh explained that in 2023, the National School Feeding programme benefited 85,000 children at a cost of $2.6 billion. This year, $4.9 billion is allocated to provide juice, biscuits, breakfast, and hot meals to some 126,170 children.

As it relates to the distribution of textbooks at school, Dr. Singh noted that the government has set aside $3 billion to procure 502,072 more textbooks this year.

He noted that in terms of Tertiary Education, the government will continue to invest in ensuring the adequate availability of specialised skills in the workforce and also enabling that young Guyanese are able to realise their full potential.

Noting plans for the University of Guyana (UG), Minister Singh announced that in 2024, new programmes will be offered in such areas as food security, cyber security, engineering technologies, biopharma, marine studies, earth and climate sciences, and sports medicine.

In 2024, he added, a sum of $4.1 billion is budgeted to support UG’s operations. Under the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL), minister said that an amount of $4 billion is allocated for GOAL to support 6,000 new students and 3,967 continuing students.

Speaking on Technical and Vocational Training (TVET), Dr. Singh announced that approximately 4,940 persons will be trained in 2024 across the institutions.

Additionally, under the Board of Industrial Training (BIT), 4,439 persons were trained in 2023. Notably, in 2024, 7,890 persons will be trained in such areas as electrical installation, plumbing, furniture making, general building construction and heavy-duty equipment operation among others, at a cost of $500 million.

Highlighting this year’s plans, he said they will expand the number of training programmes offered for Caribbean Vocational Qualifications from 88 to 111 programmes.

“Importantly, also in 2024, Phase 1 of the Guyana Technical Training College (GTTC) at Port Mourant will be operationalized. A total of 25 students will form the first cohort and will commence specialised factor simulation training in mechanical, electrical and instrumentation. When completed in 6 months, these students will be work ready to take up employment in the oil and gas industry,” the Senior Minister related.

According to Minister Singh, in 2024, $2.3 billion has been allocated to support technical and vocational interventions across the country.

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• budget, Dr. Ashni Singh, Education Sector, National Assembly, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with the responsibility for Finance

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