Gov’t to Increase Spending on Education

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Audley Shaw, has said that government will be increasing its investment in education and is on target to bring expenditure on the sector up to 15 per cent of the national budget.
Making the opening presentation in the 2010/11 Budget Debate, yesterday (April 8), Mr. Shaw stressed that “despite the very sharp cut in the budget, we want to indicate that the budget to education remains firm and is now at a very high level of some 14.2 per cent of the national budget.”
He noted that both the opposition and the government had agreed that 15 per cent was the desirable level of funding for education, and that “when the dust settles we will probably reach that 15 per cent target and surpass it in this fiscal year.”
Mr. Shaw stated that a critical feature of the government’s investment in education is the increased access of students to secondary education through the removal of tuition fees. He shared that 222,947 students benefitted in 2009/10 under the no-tuition policy.
The government has committed $72.72 billion from this year’s budget to the education sector. The allocation will cover expenses such as library services, students’ nutrition, adult education and education at the early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary level.