Education Ministry to Spend $1.7 Million on Cost Sharing Programme

The Ministry of Education and Youth will be spending $1.7 billion on the Cost Sharing Programme for secondary school students during the upcoming school year.
Minister of Education and Youth, Maxine Henry Wilson, in a back to school broadcast to the nation on (August 30), explained that under the programme, parents are required to pay only 50 per cent of their children’s school fee. “I must point out that since the start of the cost-sharing programme, the Ministry has absorbed all increases in school fees, while the amount paid by parents remains constant,” she said.
“In real terms, it costs about $89,000 to educate each secondary student per year. Of this amount, the government pays about $85,000 while parents are asked to pay about $4,000,” she said.
Mrs. Henry Wilson noted that in addition to these costs, the Ministry pays full fees for some 40,000 children registered under the Programme of Advancement through Health and Education (PATH) and the more than 740 children, who are wards of the state.
Additionally, she informed that children of teachers, administrative and ancillary staff in public high schools pay a concessionary 25 per cent of school fees and the Ministry covers the remaining 75 per cent.
The Education Minister further noted that parents, who may need assistance to pay school fees, should contact their children’s principal or the guidance counsellor, or any of the six regional offices of the Ministry of Education. “We are very clear that no child must be barred from school because of inability to pay school fees. Under no circumstances must any child be embarrassed because of non-payment of fees. We are promoting a new culture, which seeks to build and uplift our children, not destroy them,” she stated.