Government Implements Policies and Initiatives in Education
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Government Implements Policies and Initiatives in Education
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Contact: Rose Marie Harris
Wednesday, May 09, 2012 – Students and parents can look forward to a number of initiatives which should bring some financial ease in time for the next academic year. This was revealed as the Prime Minister delivered his 2012/2013 Budget Address on Tuesday May 8th. Dr. Anthony explained that these initiatives are in keeping with the Blue Print for Growth. In the Blue Print for Growth the government promised: “To ease the burden on families whose children graduate from Primary school, we will provide a one-off bursary of five hundred dollars per student to eligible parents at the start of the school year.”
“The purpose of this bursary is to assist parents to purchase vital school requirements, uniforms and shoes. The Ministry of Education will be required to create a system to ensure that the money is used for the intended purpose and nothing else. While the bursary is available to all parents, one may feel that they may not need it , so the funds will be made available on the basis of an application to the Ministry.” The Provision of two million dollars has already been made under the Education Access Fund to finance this initiative.
Meantime, also beginning this academic year, the Ministry of Education will begin to design measures to partially zone the island’s secondary schools. This is in an effort to minimize the distances children have to travel to and from school. According to Prime Minister Anthony, this in turn will reduce the need for transportation over long distances. The Ministry of Education has targeted the academic year 2013/2014 for the implementation of this programme.
“I wish to make it abundantly clear that this government will not abolish subsidies for the transportation of school children. Rather, our approach will be to ease the pain of those who are not recipients of subsidies and whose children are required to travel long distance to secondary schools by assigning them to secondary schools nearer to them. It also means that the government will have to ensure that all secondary schools receive adequate resources and no school is disadvantaged.”
Also commencing this year, the Ministry of Education will initiate plans to return “A” Level Studies to specific secondary schools. The intention is to increase access to Six Form studies and the Ministry will examine all possible options to meet that objective. Government says this initiative will take at least two years to plan and implement. |
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