Free Education for Southern High Schools Come Next School Year

And, beginning next school year, secondary education in the South of Belize will be free. This comes after the expansion of the Ministry of Education’s pilot project that aims to provide Belizean youths with easy access to holistic education. The project covers tuition, uniforms, books, and supplies, as well as a feeding program to ensure that each child gets at least one meal for the day. The Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca, says that the aim is to improve the enrollment rate at schools all over the country and have more young Belizeans getting a quality education. 

Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education: “We’re expanding that program on the south side  we’re going to expand that program on the south side but we’re also expanding it to the south of Belize so two schools in Toledo and two schools in Stann Creek to start with and so you know we’re very excited about this initiative. It’s a slow process but it’s an important process. The results from the pilot we’ve had on the south side of Belize City we’re absolutely pleased with the results. Obviously we want to continue to do more but we have been able to keep these students in school, we’ve been able to enroll an additional I think 200 students who were not in school previously into these four institutions and we’re going to continue to work on that so it’s critically important as I always say it’s a comprehensive program so it’s easy to just talk about free education it”s much more than that it’s not just about tuition. Some people get confused about that it’s also about a feeding program, it’s about school supplies, it’s about digital devices, it’s about uniforms, it’s about shoes and tennis so it’s a comprehensive approach to education so I’m very proud of that program and I’m very proud that we have the full support of the government, the Cabinet to expand it to the south and of course you know we’re in year two we have three years to go in government we’ll continue to expand this project each and every year.”