The $10,000 grant per child in public schools is to be paid out in September, the Ministry of Education said today. Consultations are being held on the mechanism of the payment.
A Ministry of Education release follows.
The Ministry of Education says the The Ministry of Education is currently engaging parents and guardians of school age children on the most suitable mode in which the Ministry can issue the Ten Thousand Dollar ($10,000) per child grant that was announced by the government in the 2014 budget.
During a visit to Essequibo Coast, Region Two Minister of Education, Hon.
Priya Manickchand engaged parents of 45 schools in nine separate meetings
on how the Ministry can best provide the grant to them. Minister
Manickchand explained that the grant will be awarded to every child
attending public school in a household even if there are 10 children in
that household. “It is not $10,000 per household so a mother with 10
chzppuisildren can be sure that she will be receiving $100,000 for her children,”
the Minister told the gathering who attended the consultations.
The Minister sought to consult the very large gatherings on whether they
would prefer to be able to encase a voucher of if they would prefer to be
able to purchase goods from accredited stores with the vouchers. The
parents almost unanimously chose to be able to encash their voucher.
The Minister also consulted the parents and guardians on the question of
which financial service they would prefer to be able to get their cash. On
the Essequibo coast, the parents have four services available to them.
These are the Banks, post offices, Western Union and GTT’s mobile money.
Some parents noted that they were expecting to receive their grant before
school reopens in September.
However, Minister Manickchand explained that the grant will be issued in
the new school term to facilitate the children now entering the public
school system. Minister added that as many as10,000 children are expected
to start school in September, and based on the law, until they start school
at the beginning of the term, they will not be counted as children
attending school.
The Minister and a team of Education Officers during last week were
involved in a similar consultation at the Stella Maris Nursery, the New
Diamond/Grove Primary School and the Golden Grove Primary school on the
East Coast of Demerara, which also saw impressive crowd. Earlier in the
month, Minister Manickchand and team travelled to and consulted with
parents of region 9 over a three-day period.
