Education Minister Priya Manickchand with Global Partnership for Education Board Chair Julia Gillard
The Education Ministry has announced that at the last meeting of the Board of Directors on which Education Minister Priya Manickchand sits as a Director, representing Latin America and the Caribbean, the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) approved a US$1.7 million education grant for Guyana.
According to a release, the Ministry will apply the US$1.7 million education grant to improve its Early Childhood Education Programme with particular attention being paid to the Hinterland and Riverin communities.
Minister Manickchand in expressing great pleasure at Guyana being a recipient of the grant said she expects the grant to allow for building on the many gains already made and expects to see vastly improved learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy at the early levels.
“This is critical funding at a time when 58 million children of primary school age are still not in school,” said Julia Gillard, Board Chair of the Global Partnership for Education.
“All children should have access to a school with effective teachers and be able to learn so they can contribute to the development of their community and nation,” she said.
Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education said “If we want to reach the Education for All goals, we need to ensure that adequate funding is available from both domestic and external sources,” said.
“While donor funding to education has dropped by 10 per cent since 2010, the Global Partnership has consistently increased its education funding, particularly for children living in the poorest and often fragile and conflict-affected countries.”
The six new grants build on prior achievements and will help implement the national education plans of Central African Republic, Guinea, Guyana, Kenya, Lao PDR and Nigeria.
Guyana joined the Global Partnership for Education in 2002.
This new financing reflects the Global Partnership’s top priorities: increasing access to basic education in fragile countries, improving the quality of education, improving teachers’ effectiveness, generating measurable results and championing girls’ education.
The last meeting of the Board of Directors, Global Partnership for Education was held in Washington DC, United States from December 15-17.
The Global Partnership for Education is made up of nearly 60 developing country Governments, as well as donor Governments, civil society/non-governmental organisations, teacher organisations, international organisations, and the private sector and foundations, whose joint mission is to galvanise and coordinate a global effort to provide a good quality education to children, prioritising the poorest and most vulnerable.
The Global Partnership for Education has allocated US$3.9 billion over the past decade to support education reforms in some of the world’s poorest countries. Almost half of its funding in 2014 went to fragile and conflict-affected countries.