Primary Education Project gets $800 Million

The Government’s primary efficiency education project has been allocated some $800 million, while over $600 million will be spent during the 2016/2017 fiscal year to boost capacity at the University of Technology (UTech).

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) funded Primary Education Support Project will facilitate construction of 12 primary schools, to increase capacity by 5,175 places.

Details of funding for the Primary Education programme are contained in the 2016/2017 Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House of Representatives.

The programme will also be providing 60 Masters and 10 Doctoral fellowships for teachers’ college lecturers, delivering training to 4,500 primary school teachers, as school-based coordinators, and 9,907 in the use of the Revised Primary Curriculum.

Fellowships will be provided for 680 school principals; grade books and procedural manuals will be provided for all primary schools.

Establishment of a state-of-the-art Education Management Information System is also under the plan, as well as the development and implementation of training, mentoring, and internship programmes for succession planning and efficiency improvement at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information.

Some of the primary schools that have benefitted from the programme up to December 2015 are Mansfield, Fruitful Vale, Chester Castle, Lucea, Sheffield, Red Hills, Barracks Road, McIntosh, Zion Hill, and the Four Paths Primary and Junior High Schools.

Under the $600 million UTech enhancement project, facilities will be developed, as well as staff members, and improvement to its financial sustainability. It started in July  2008, and will end in September 2017.

So far, completion has been done to the upgrading of the Environmental Laboratory, and Day Care facilities, while others are ongoing, or nearing completion.