Senior Minister Francis Fonseca followed Hyde and began, of course, by criticizing the Opposition Leader's speech. Then as Minister of Education, he announced that 14,000 students - or all those enrolled in government high schools - will be attending for free. Here's a snippet of that speech.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"It was in my respectful view very a very weak, very tired, very uninspiring presentation. It's difficult to understand how you could talk two hours without say anything. And we've seen tremendous increase in enrollment at the pre-primary level."
"So, you know, that's significant. And then we've also seen unprecedented enrollment at the tertiary level. Tertiary level. We want to make sure that our people understand that, listen, nowadays, you know, the high school education is not enough."
"It's not enough. The associate's degree is good, but even that, we need to go beyond. We need our young people, our students, to stay in school. We need them to go get their bachelor's degree. One of the programs I'm very, very proud of, and I think our entire government is very proud of, and I'm very, very grateful for the full support that we receive from the Prime Minister, the entire cabinet for the education upliftment project, right? Education upliftment project. Together we rise. That's what we call it. Because that's what its all about. It's about lifting our people up. So that program is fantastic. We've seen fantastic growth in that program."
"The Deputy Prime Minister referred to it. But when we started out in 2022, we started out in a responsible way, in a very modest way, on the south side of Belize City with the GEMS, the GEM schools. And we had a little under a thousand students enrolled in the program, that four secondary schools."
"In this, I'm so proud of the fact that in this fiscal period, this 2026-2027 budget period, Madam Speaker, and I want you to hear me very clearly, the Education Upliftment Project will expand to 27 secondary schools."
"27. Remember, I told you we started with a little under a thousand students. Now we will have 14,000 students in this education upliftment project. Every single student in this country attending a government secondary school is going to school free of cost under this government."
The debate continues at this hour and resumes tomorrow at 10:00.
