The Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts has noted that there have been some inaccuracies reported in some media in relation to the consultation process with school heads and school management on the “free education grant” held recently.
Schools will need to seek permission first from the Ministry before embarking on any fundraising initiatives. The school fundraising policy has been in place for several years and permission for fundraising will be given in special circumstances and is usually requested by schools for infrastructure development.
Some of the information considered by the Ministry include: one fundraising event per year; learning and teaching time must not be compromised; there is full transparency and accountability and no financial target is set for any student to raise.
This is to ensure that no parent or student is effectively levied. Funds raised by the school are paid into the school’s bank account.
For 2019-2020 financial year, there is a slight reduction. This is in recognition that, over the years through the budgetary allocation, the Ministry has taken over some of the expenditure through its own operational budget that was initially allocated to schools from FEG. An example is text books which from the 2018-2019 budget, has been met by the Ministry.
The FEG was introduced in 2014 and the budget allocations to date are:
| Year |
Primary |
Secondary |
| 2014 |
33,980,500 |
31,504,764 |
| 2015 |
22,510,984 |
21,048,974 |
| 2016 |
35,000,000 |
21,085,530 |
| 2016/2017 |
34,872,015 |
31,080,865 |
| 2017/2018 |
35,000,000 |
29,119,440 |
| 2018/2019 |
35,000,000 |
31,433,440 |
| 2019/2020 |
33,594,415 |
30,095,440 |
Since 2014, the FEG allocated to schools amounts to $425m.
The FEG is a Government initiative to ensure that no child is left behind and that barriers to education are removed. The FEG covers the operational costs of the school.