And in the education sector, since the start of the school year, students from Maud Williams, Excelsior, Sadie Vernon, and Gwen Lizarraga have all benefited from the government's free education program. Over the past few months, the financial burden of tuition, uniforms, and other school supplies has been lifted from their parents' shoulders, and more children have enrolled. And since this pilot project has seen great success, in the coming school year, it will be rolled out into the Toledo District. The area rep for Toledo West told us more about it yesterday.
Oscar Requena, Minister of Rural Transformation, Labor
"Under Plan Belize we promised free education from pre school all the way to sixth form and I am very happy to say that our Minister of Education, the Honorable Francis Fonseca, together with us as a Cabinet, as a government, we have been working very diligently and the minister has annouced that certain schools on the Southside have been piloting the free education and come September, I believe that the entire Southside of Belize City will have access to free education and it is not going to roll to the Toledo District. That is welcomed news and that is delivering our commitment under Plan Belize. There is no better opportunity than to provide greater access and opportunity for our children to get a good education so I am very happy for that."
And as you heard, the project will also be expanded on the Southside. According to the Minister of Education, the results of the initial phase were overwhelming, and students who attend the targeted schools get the whole package.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education, Culture
"We're expanded that project on the Southside, we're going to expand that program, 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, so 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 Southside 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, it's easy to just talk about free education, it's much more than that, it's not just about free 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."
