The Belize Education Sector Plan 2.0 was launched today by the Ministry Of Education, setting goals for 2026-2030 to modernize Belize's education system from early education to secondary.
We learned about its targets and goals at the launch today.
The first quarter of the Belize Education Sector Plan was devised to accomplish goals within the 2021 to 2025 window but today, Plan 2.0 was launched with new provisions and objectives to achieve free education, leaving no student behind. With over 100,000 students enrolled in our education system from pre-school to university, BESPLAN 2.0 will impact well over 2 dozen schools.
Ricardo Gideon, MOECTS Director, Policy, Planning, Research & Evaluation
"In 2026- 2027 this expansion will go to 27 secondary schools to cater for over 14000 students for an investments of over 15 million dollars. In the plan 2026-2030 we will definitely have 100% of secondary schools who will be part of the educational upliftment project, 100% of these students will benefit from free tuition, free education. We have more than 8,500 families to be impacted or benefited from this provision from the government and this represents that 60% of all secondary school students will be attending secondary education for free in this country. And the BESPLAN 2026-230 will ensure that additional government aided secondary schools are added as the need arises."
So what does MOECST hope to achieve during this 5 year period? The CEO and minister discussed lessons learned from the last plan and what goals they have set for 2026-230.
Dian Maheia, CEO, MOECST
"Last time we had 4 main program areas, this yea we have 6 there are some similarities in some like maximizing human capital for example was a key program area in the 21-25 plan it remains a key program area in the 26-30 plan there has been some adjustments to the program areas for example in the 21-25 plan we had prioritizing underserved sectors. This time, we have switched it to advancing priority education sectors because we have recognized that there are some areas in which we have made advances so we have 6 key program areas. Under each of these program areas there are 20 key result areas, 20 total under these 6. Each of those KRAS has a section of strategic actions."
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"That was very much the focus how do we make sure that we continue to get our students back into the classroom, in a responsible way, how do we expand our programs how do we invest in our teachers? How do we continue to promote access. So this plan is about building on that foundation that we have built over the past 5 years and you know in terms of specific issues I like to highlight the areas of early childhood education we understand that it is an area we have to place greater focus on, greater priority on greater resources into, special education, inclusion, critically important area and then technical vocational education and training, those are areas that perhaps we were not able to pay enough attention to in the first five years so we are building on that and focusing on those critical areas as well as we are very proud of the fact that we mentioned that teachers, really teachers are central to this five year plan and how can we support our teaching community in a more effective way."
