Students to receive transportation grant

The government will roll out a transportation grant for students once re-elected for a second term, said People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, on Thursday.

Speaking at his weekly press briefing at Freedom House, Dr. Jagdeo said the aim of the grant is to ease the burden of transportation costs on parents to send their children to school.

“The idea is, how do we take away the burden of funding education from the family? So, every child in the country, whether you are poor or your parents are poor or wealthy, they have opportunities for good quality education. The next thing is getting the child to school. We might not be able to cover all the costs, but we give maybe on an annual basis a grant to the parents to offset transportation costs,” Dr. Jagdeo said.

He added that the government will also increase the school uniform grant, expand the school feeding programme, and continue free education from nursery to university.

“We can remove all of the burden. When a person has a child now they don’t have to worry whether they’re rich or poor that their child would get a deficient education, because the government will fund it all. Some of them may say, ‘I’m not taking it.’ At least it’s there for those who need it,” he re-emphasised.

Dr. Jagdeo said this will be a major investment and a commitment to the people of the country.

“It will yield, years from now, massive benefits. The industries that we can generate, if we have high quality labour and education, which we’re committed to delivering,” he said.

The issue of transportation for school children has always been a concern for parents, but the government has never been keen on government-run buses, although it supports this system.

“Where that could be done we will continue doing it for communities that can run them and then we will also do this grant,” he noted.