Georgetown: 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 children 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.
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