Ensuring that all students can access education

Dear Editor,
I could vividly recall the severe hardships which parents had to undergo to send their children to school. As a former teacher, it was so embarrassing when at the beginning of the school year I had to do some harsh cuttings so that I could afford to send my children to school. Sometimes they had to start in the second or third week into the school year.
I had realised as a teacher, that this scenario is not peculiar to my circumstances but to the majority of parents since many students will not turn out to school until later. There is an old excuse that students would normally offer to whoever asked why they were not at school and that is, “we have to do cleaning at school and I don’t want to dirty my new clothes”. Sounds plausible, but is that the fact? In fact, in some cases the cloth was not even purchased as yet! In some cases, it was purchased late and still at the seamstress or tailor.
This Government has realised the constraints which parents go through and had introduced the “Because We Care” grant so that parents can have money on hand to purchase the necessary items to ensure that their children are prepared for school on the very first day. When the coalition removed this, coupled with the closure of the sugar estates, many parents could not afford to send their children to school. Of what use was the “Granger buses” when only a few accessed it and parents could not afford to buy the necessaries. This is certainly putting the “bus” before the “horse”.
Today, Honourable Minister Manickchand has proudly announced that the Government will distribute this year, 193,679 “Because We Care” cash grants and school uniform allowances with an estimated cost of $5.8 billion. This will be for both private and public schools. Each child will receive $30,000 – $25,000 as the grant and $5000 as an allowance for uniform. The distribution will commence on August 2 thus ensuring that all purchases are made in preparation for the new school year.
Unlike the coalition, this Government did not do away with the buses but actually improved the service. The coalition had aborted the “Because We Care” under the pretext that the buses will save the parents more monies than to $10,000 they were receiving. What an asinine statement! Why not maintain the grant and provide the additional free services? This Government had made a promise to increase this to $50,000 by 2025. And there is no doubt that this will happen.
This year the Government has allocated $74.4 billion to the education sector and the Honourable Minister Priya Manickchand is ensuring that Guyanese receive value for money. Our education standard is improving by leaps and bounds as more teachers are being trained, there is massive improvement in the curriculum and classroom delivery, the building of new schools, massive repairs to the current buildings and infrastructures and general improvement in the education system ensuring the President’s vision of achieving a world class education for all.
This grant will greatly motivate parents to ensure that their children take full advantage of the system. The Honourable Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh had said in his budget presentation that “improved access, quality, and relevance are essential to raising Guyana’s human capital to the levels needed to advance and sustain the imminent transformative economic and social development”. And this Government is doing everything possible to ensure that all our students take full advantage of this.

Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf