$40.3B, or 17.5 percent of the 2016 Budget, will be used to strengthen the Education sector this year, Finance Minister Winston Jordan announced on Friday.He said that to ensure children are adequately outfitted for school, 28,000 pairs of footwear will be distributed in the first quarter of this year. These will be distributed primarily within the hinterland and riverine areas, and this will complement the $424.2 million that have been budgeted for the continuation of the school uniform programme. This programme is expected to benefit over 204,000 children attending schools in the hinterland and on the coastland.

Additionally, while $1.3 billion were expended on the National School Feeding Programme last year, this year’s programme has been increased to $1.9B, to cater for a hot meal which will benefit over 7,000 additional hinterland students. This year, too, a sum of $4.3B has been allocated to continue infrastructure construction, rehabilitation and repairs. Included in this programme is completion of the Kato Secondary Complex, which is intended to ease the overcrowding at Paramakatoi and provide full secondary education for many students in primary tops.

Also included is the construction of a new building for South Road Nursery, Peter’s Hall Primary, and Golden Grove and Aurora Secondary schools.

Furthermore, in an effort to ensure access to quality education in the hinterland, over $80M have been allocated for the provision of adequate accommodation for hinterland teachers, one of the key impediments to deploying trained teachers to the hinterland.

The Government also announced that under the Secondary Education Improvement Project, a total of 1,125 tablets will be distributed to seventh grade students and math teachers in eight pilot schools, facilitating better learning outcomes through the use of technology.

In the area of post-secondary education, $2.2B were allocated for equipping and upgrading the technical institutes and training centres across Guyana. This allocation will facilitate the acquisition of equipment and upgrades of these facilities, along with producing over 800 persons trained in the fields of information technology, electrical installation and air condition repairs, and motor repairs, among other key specialties. The University of Guyana will also benefit from $3.2B, which was allocated to the institution in 2016. This represents a 52 per cent increase, and was described as a first step to making the university a true institution of higher learning.