Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman on Wednesday announced that government has indefinitely shelved the former administration’s $10,000 school grant initiative on the grounds that it is “fiscally unsustainable” and it is now actively considering a number of other initiatives in keeping with its priorities for education.
“To have a grant of $10,000 to every school child without it being focused to those who need it more is… not fiscally sustainable for any economy and particularly ours,” he said at a press briefing held at the Ministry of the Presidency. While he commended the grant in principle, Trotman said it was badly implemented as it lacked the necessary checks and balances needed to ensure that the most vulnerable children were the sole or primary beneficiaries.
“We would want to review it to ensure, for example, that a child that would have previously received $10,000 but is living in abject poverty would now in fact receive $100,000,” he said. “For now, it has been stopped… we will continue with the school uniform vouchers which we found was not a bad programme and of course seek to enhance it,” he added.
The $10,000 grant for parents of children in the public school system was initiated by the former government on October 8, 2014, under the tenure of former Education Minister Priya Manickchand. The only criterion to be met to benefit from the nationwide programme, branded ‘Because We Care,’ was that the child must have been registered in school.
In a Facebook message on Monday, Manickchand said she was “truly saddened” to learn that the programme is being terminated and hoped the government would “revisit this harsh decision.”
‘Critical flaws’
Meanwhile, in a statement on Wednesday, the Education Ministry said while that the APNU+AFC government while in opposition supported the initiative via budgetary approval on its professed merits as a one-off initiative intended to provide critical intervention into a significant problem in our education system. “This support was offered despite vibrant criticisms from several sections of the society that the programme appeared ill-conceived though ostensibly well-intended, and that it would be turn out to be an electioneering gimmick on behalf of the then incumbent,” it said.
The Ministry said its fears were not unfounded as evidenced by the “kitsch branding of the grant with the ‘Because We Care’ slogan, and the mobilization of several senior government officials for photo opportunities at disbursement centres in the months leading up to elections.” Further, it said, the programme was hampered by three critical flaws with the cash grant approach, which the then government withheld from the public.
Among these flaws was the dearth of a built-in monitoring and evaluation mechanism to ensure either effective use of the grant, or actual impact on enrolment and attendance. “This means that there exists no plan to verify that the money was used as intended whether directly or incorporated into the budgeting for the child’s educational needs. It also means that there was no plan in place to measure whether the funds allocated resulted in increased enrolment and, more importantly, attendance,” the ministry said.
It also said that the initiative is “inherently economically unsustainable,” with hidden additional administrative costs, and disproportionate real costs such as security. “According to our unaudited figures, 85% of the grant target was reached while 93% of the budget was expended. It should also be taken into consideration $92 million of the amount budget for was allocated presumably for administration of the grant,” it said.
Third, as executed, the project over-extended the ministry’s existing human resource infrastructure resulting in lost man hours that should have been assigned to other tasks and reduced efficiency in its functions over the disbursement period, the statement added.
The Ministry said under the David Granger-led administration, its priority for education development is “measurable, cost-effective service delivery with a strong focus on monitoring and evaluation to ensure that programmes result in tangible benefits to those our public education system is intended to serve, the young people of Guyana.”
It added, “The central challenge of optimizing attendance and enrolment has to be overcome by a targeted programme aimed at meeting particular individual and community needs as well as improving upon existing national initiatives, even as we ensure value for money in service delivery.”
The Ministry is currently actively considering a number of initiatives in this endeavour, including expanding and intensifying the school feeding programme to include, for example, providing breakfast for targeted students; transportation services for targeted student populations, particularly those in hinterland or riverine communities and increasing the school uniform voucher value to more accurately reflect the rising cost of goods and services.
The Ministry is also considering the establishment of a fund that will provide additional direct, financial support for students in difficult circumstances. Meanwhile, Cabinet has approved a $63M contract for the supply of exercise books for school children that was awarded to the Guyana National Printers Limited.
