M.C.C. $250 Million Grant to Be Invested in Education

Minister of Education Francis Fonseca, in his contribution to the debate on the two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar grant, highlighted several challenges in Belize’s education sector. He explained that significant investments will be made to improve the sector for young men, women and teachers across the country. Minister Fonseca also noted that he does not believe the opposition needs to have a seat on the board.

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“One of the challenges we have is with males staying in schools and when they are there keeping them. There will be targeted programs for males, young men to make sure they go into secondary school, complete secondary school at a minimum to make sure they are kept there and while they are there that they will be equipped with the skills to participate in the national development of Belize and labor market in an effective way. One of the challenges we have with young women, as you know it is a very positive development, in that we have a lot more females attending school going to school, going to tertiary education, so we have a lot more educated women in our society, absolutely important. This is a reversal of wat use to take place fifty years ago. But what we find is that even though the young women are being better trained and educated, they are not getting jobs in the job market that meets their trainings, education skills. So how do we make sure we are improving work force participation by women in our society? One of the components is of course developing a quality assurance system, capacity building of education leadership and teachers. We have to keep improving and enhancing the capacity of our education leaders and teachers, providing teaching and learning resources.”