OVER 22,000 students in Region Six, East Berbice-Corentyne are expected to receive a $4,000 uniform and school supplies voucher, which will inject approximately $90M into the region’s economy and bring much-needed financial relief to residents.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Education, Priya Manickhand, during the launch of the voucher programme at Tagore Memorial Secondary School in #63 Village, on Saturday.
The $4,000 voucher represents a 100 per cent increase from $2,000 and can be redeemed at accredited stores across the region and used to purchase any school related items such as uniform, stationery, footwear and even text books.

“This money is going to be spent in the region because people will cash the vouchers at stores in their communities or nearby. We are very pleased to bring this to the residents and this is just a small part of the kind of assistance we intend to give that will complement the high quality teaching we want in the classrooms,” Minister Manickchand said.
She explained that approximately $650 million will be expended across the country and over 160,000 students on the coastland will benefit; children in the hinterland will receive uniform fabric and/or some cash of the same value.

“We want to be able to make sure people can have a better quality of life and, so, it’s not only the uniform voucher, because we give cash grants which come on board next year…but we have also removed VAT on electricity so the parents have less to pay on their light bill and we have also removed VAT from the water bills so you pay less on water.
“We have given more to pensioners so that families where a pensioner exists there is more income. We have removed VAT on Agricultural machinery and several items where VAT existed, so shopping generally will be a lighter burden and those are all things that will accumulate to make sure parents can better serve the needs of their students.”

Minister Manickchand further revealed that the hot meals programme would be expanded and the ministry is currently conducting evaluation on what text books are currently being used and what are needed. At the end of the evaluation, a consensus can be reached by teachers on which are the best books for the respective grades/levels so that students can be provided with the required books free of cost.

Minister Manickchand visited several schools across Region Six to distribute the vouchers to the respective head teachers who will later give then to the parents.
Meanwhile, one of the recipients, Kayola Ramackhan 40, a resident of Number 58 village, said she is grateful to the Minister and the government for the assistance provided.
She said the voucher will ease her financial burdens as she is also looking forward to the $15,000 cash grant in 2021.