-government to take up slack in funding

MINISTER of Labour, Dr. Nanda Gopaul, has given the assurance that the ministry is making representation at the governmental level to ensure that the project which provided free transportation to and from school  to students on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway  and hot meals, continues in the new school term, even  though  funds from the donor, the International Labor Organization  (ILO) have run dry.

Some 360 children from the Kuru Kuru Nursery Class, Kuru Kuru Primary School and the Dora Secondary on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway had benefited  from the  ILO programme named  Tackling Child Labour  through Education (TACKLE) over the past two years.
The TACKLE programme was funded to the tune of US $223,000  by  ILO and the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) which is sponsored  by the European Union (EU)  and with M$3.3GD counterpart funding from  the Government of Guyana.
The project had assisted school-aged students living along the highway to get easily to and from school; giving them nutritional support in the form of a balanced meal three days per week and a range of other support services, including numeracy and literacy programmes and remedial classes.
Dr. Gopaul recently disclosed that prior to the programme  average attendance at the  schools, which are all housed in the  compound formerly occupied by the  Kuru Kuru College two and half miles off the highway,  had ranged between  40 and 50% occasionally reaching  60%
He said that the programme had resulted in 100% attendance at the schools  and had been a remarkable success in bringing children off the streets and back to school .
He noted that the schools are playing an important role in educating children on the highway and his ministry wants to see them continue doing so.
He said: “We are making representation at the level of the Government to have monies put into the budget to ensure that we can transport those children along the highway. We don’t mind if it goes into the budget of the Ministry of Education but we want to see those children continue at school; to ensure that their education is not affected by the distance that they have to traverse to reach school.”
The ILO-funded programme had been initiated by the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security (ML&HSS) in September 2011 last under the name  School Retention and Child Labour Prevention Programme,(SR&CLPP).
The   Ministry of Education   assisted with the implementation.
Funds allocated ran out in July 2013 but the ILO was so pleased about  its success  that it found funds to keep at least two components, free transportation and free meals  going, until the end of this school term.
The funds have now been completely exhausted prompting some amount of uncertainty,but also optimism among the beneficiaries, that the government would step in and take up the slack.

(By Clifford Stanley)