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Poverty to Prosperity
Budget Presentation
Gordon House March 19, 2015
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were enrolled in tertiary institutions, 12,189 applications were made to the Student
Loans Bureau and approximately JA$3.2b was disbursed.
Mr. Speaker, the flow through effect of the improved performance at the primary and
secondary levels as a result of the programmes implemented, has led to a bottleneck in
tertiary education financing. As more students qualify for a tertiary place by virtue of
meeting matriculation requirements, the present model of financing tertiary education
becomes increasingly unsustainable.
Mr. Speaker, it is against this backdrop that I make the following statement. After 10
years and several billion dollars of implementation of the Education Transformation
programme, there must now be a full review and evaluation of the initiative. Several
new agencies have been created, the Ministry has been decentralized and operations
devolved, several new policy initiatives and programme have been implemented. We
must now assess where we are relative to goals previously set, identify and resolve
conflicts, inconsistencies and bottlenecks (such as tertiary financing), agree on new
goals and identify the critical pathways to achieve them.We must now launch the second
phase of education transformation.
1.
As in the first phase, bi-partisan political support is critical. This Parliament must
commit to new national targets in education, in terms resources, participation, and
output. Government and Opposition must agree to make education an area of
national priority and cooperation.