The Ministry of Education said parents of primary age students from seven schools turned out in their numbers at the National Park to collect their ‘Because we care’ $10,000 vouchers.
Parents of children enrolled at Stella Maris Primary, St Margaret’s Primary, North Georgetown Primary, Winfer Gardens Primary, St Angela’s Primary, St Agnes Primary and the David Rose School for the Handicapped were served at the park last week.
In his address at the brief ceremony, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds said national programmes like ‘Because we care’ is a demonstration of government’s commitment to the nation’s children and their education. Hinds then encouraged parents to make the necessary lifestyle adjustments and sacrifices to help take full advantage of the education provided by the government. The prime minister said government continues to spend a significant amount of the annual national budget on education services, the supply of books, teacher training, information technology, access to education and new programmes that provide assistance to parents to help them get their children to school.
In response to persons who voiced concerns about the amount of taxes collected, Hinds said, “those who are better off pay relatively more taxes…when we deliver services, we deliver services equally such as this one…delivering the same amount of money to every child across the country….”
The ministry said 4,564 parents were served. Approximately 8,315 persons were expected to have been served at 10 other distribution sites including the Sophia Primary, Graham’s Hall Primary, St Gabriel’s Primary, St Ambrose Primary, West Ruimveldt Primary, Dolphin Secondary, St Pius Primary, FE Pollard Primary, Rama Krishna Primary and Enterprise Primary. All tolled, the ministry distributed about $128M.
