Free Education school grant reduction will be between $8 to $18 per child

The Education Ministry's school grant reduction will be between $8 to $18 per child.

Director Finance of Education, Sukhendra Lal says school heads will soon receive a circular which will explain how the $2.7 million reduction in the free education grant budget will affect the school grants.

Lal says the current formula for primary schools when allocating grants is that schools that have 399 students enrolled get $250 per child and small schools get base grants of $10,000, $5,300, $3,500 or 3,000 depending on the school category.

He says the proposed grant distribution amongst primary schools will attract a reduction of $18 per child where schools will receive $232 per child instead of $250.

Lal says secondary schools who have more than 400 students enrolled for years 9 and 10 get $375 per child and the proposed grant distribution attracts a $8 reduction where schools will receive $367 instead of $375 per child.

He says these reductions are across all the years which is year 9 to year 13 and also includes different school categories.

Lal says the reduction in the free education grant distribution will be in effect from this term which schools will be receiving in two weeks. 

He says due to the overall reduction in the budget across all ministries, it is prudent that there will be a reduction in the free education grants as it would not be sustainable when looked from the ministry's headquarters function as well.

Lal says in this financial year, the ministry has unfortunately not been able to absorb the budget deficit internally.

He says the ministry does not see any way the schools won't be able to manage and absorb the deficit of $2.7 million.

Lal says before schools had to buy their own textbooks but last year the ministry had allocated $6 million for textbooks and this financial year there is an additional allocation of $3 million. 

He adds that if schools will face issues when managing the reduction in grants then the ministry is willing to assist the schools heads and management on how to operate efficiently.

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