The proposed 2016 budget allocation for the education sector is heavily focused on improving the quality of education in Guyana’s hinterland region.
According to Minister of Finance Winston Jordan, the $40.3 billion, which has been allocated for the sector is to be used to realize “equity and quality across regions” with “focus being given to education in the hinterland where both the deployment of manpower and the monitoring of education delivery require urgent attention.”
This year’s proposed allocation is more than $8 billion over the $31.8 billion allocated last year. In 2014, the previous administration had allocated $32.3 billion to the sector.
Among the measures to be used to realise equity and quality is an expansion of the present ‘Three Bs’ (Boats, Buses and Bicycles) Initiative, to include books and breakfast, which has already been telegraphed by President David Granger, who has spearheaded the initiative.
Consequently, a sum of $1.9 billion has been set aside for the National School Feeding Programme. This is $600 million more than last year’s allocation and the increase is expected to see hot meals provided to over 7,000 additional hinterland students.
Also augmented is the school uniform programme, which has been allocated $424.2 million and is expected to benefit over 204,000 children attending schools across the country. As a complement to this allocation, 28,000 pairs of footwear, the minister announced, will be distributed in the first quarter of this year, primarily within hinterland and riverain areas.
These measures are expected to address “issues of school attendance, punctuality and students’ ability to focus after travelling long distances by foot, all of which limit their access to education,” Jordan said.
Noting that student performance in examinations point to critical gaps in the quality of education delivered, the minister highlighted that this year’s budget will address the key component of teacher training by establishing satellite centres of the teachers’ training college. These centres, which will be located in Kwakwani, Kamarang, Moraikobai and Charity, are expected to increase the number of trained teachers in the hinterland and riverain areas. Their numbers will be added to the 415 teachers expected to be added to the education system next year.
The government also plans to spend $80 million on the provision of adequate accommodation for hinterland teachers. These accommodations are expected to remove “one of the key impediments to deploying trained teachers to the hinterland,” Minister Jordan explained.
Further, infrastructural works have been budgeted at a cost of $4.3 billion, twice the $2.1 billion which was budgeted last year for similar works.
In 2015, works were completed on the One Mile Primary School, secondary schools at West Demerara and Sand Creek, the Port Kaituma male dormitory and science laboratories at Corentyne Comprehensive Secondary and Vreed-en-Hoop Secondary.
The 2016 allocation is expected see the completion of the “Kato Secondary Complex, which is intended to ease the overcrowding at Paramakatoi and provide full secondary education for many students in primary tops. Also included is the construction of a new building for South Road Nursery, Peter’s Hall Primary and Golden Grove and Aurora Secondary schools.”
The minister also touted the launching in 2016 of the Education Resources Delivery Software and the deployment to all nurseries and grade one classes in the hinterland regions of Early Childhood Education Resource Kits and teachers’ manuals.
These kits “contain resources that explicitly target numeracy, science and inquiry, dramatic play and music, art and craft and social studies.” As a result, “they provide the foundational tools for appreciation of culture and arts at a young age,” the minister said. He added that “no child should be asked to learn without having access to the requisite textbooks and our government will ensure that this barrier is removed.”
Other spending in the sector is expected to focus on the review and updating of the regional education action plans emanating from the national strategic plan for education 2014-2018. While the minister did not note in his presentation how much money and time will be spent bringing these plans in line with the new “mandates and timelines for the sector,” former minister of finance Ashni Singh had in 2014 told Members of Parliament during that budget presentation that a $3.8 billion increase in the sectors allocation was to be used to implement the first year of the then “new Education Strategic Plan.”
Post-secondary education has been allocated $2.2 billion, which will be used for the “equipping and upgrading the technical institutes and training centres.”
This allocation, the minister said, will “facilitate the acquisition of equipment and upgrades of these facilities, produce over 800 persons trained in the fields of information technology, electrical installation and air condition repairs, and motor repairs, among other key specialties and finance efforts to strengthen resident training programmes at Kuru Kuru Skills Training Centre.”
The University of Guyana (UG) has been allocated $3.2 billion, a 52% increase on last year’s allocation. According to the minister, this allocation is “a first step to making the university a true institution of higher learning.”
It is a representation of government’s commitment “to providing the necessary resources, over time, to upgrade the entire University of Guyana system and ensure that UG has the capacity to attract quality lecturers and researchers as a key input into producing a quality graduate. This commitment, he noted, “stems from government’s appreciation of the critical role a university plays in supporting knowledge-driven economic growth strategies and fostering democratic, socially-cohesive societies.” The university, he stressed, is a barometer and a critical factor in determining the quality of Guyana’s nationhood.
