Internet Expansion Reaches Seventy-Eight Thousand Students

For thousands of Belizean students, internet access is quickly becoming as essential as books and classrooms. Government says it has invested two million dollars to expand connectivity across more than two hundred schools, benefiting over seventy-eight thousand learners. Prime Minister John Briceño says that investment comes at a defining moment, with more than one hundred thousand students enrolled from pre-primary to university, the largest student population Belize has ever seen.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“There are now one hundred and one thousand, five hundred and six students enrolled, from pre-primary through to university, taught by six thousand and forty-four teachers in six hundred and forty six institutions, making it the largest generation of learners this country has ever had in its classrooms. The Education Upliftment Program now includes twenty-seven high schools, covering all twenty secondary government schools and seven government-aided schools, benefiting more than fourteen thousand students. In total, more than nineteen thousand students, or eighty-three percent of all secondary school students, get either full or partial financial help, and over eight thousand five hundred families are experiencing this relief. This year alone, over sixteen million dollars were invested in financial assistance, up five million dollars from the previous year. We feed them. At present, twenty thousand students get a hot meal each day in one hundred and four schools, eighty-three primary schools and twenty-one secondary school, an investment of ten point four million dollars. A hungry child cannot learn.”

 

Can Education Deliver the Workers Belize Needs?

 

Belize is investing millions to close the gap between what students learn and the skills employers need. Fifty-four million U.S. dollars from the Millennium Challenge Corporation grant will support education improvements, strengthen teacher and leadership training, and expand Technical and Vocational Education and Training. It represents the largest portion of the compact’s funding and aims to create clearer pathways from the classroom to meaningful employment. Millennium Challenge Authority Chairman Joseph Waight explains how the plan will work.

 

Joseph Waight, Chair, Millenium Challenge Account

“As a nation we make sure we invest a lot in education already. It takes up the lion’s share of the budget. But when we look at the outputs, I don’t think anybody is saying that we are meeting the entire demand for skills, the demand for trained young people coming out of school who can meet the needs of the local and maybe even international market. For years we have emphasized more academic training when it comes to business and so and I think that need is satisfied. But look at the TVET. When we all need to get somebody to do electrical works in our homes or plumbing or so, then we realize what the shortage is and hotels that are in construction, so the emphasis will be on TVET to try and improve. The TVET will be dynamic to respond to the changing needs of skills out there. So the idea is that we will set up the TVET as an act, certification, large private sector participation to determine, because the private sector knows but skills are needed. We see it in the prices of somebody coming to fix a plumbing issue for us.”

 

The Belize Compact will also seek to increase the involvement of skilled Belizean talent from the diaspora.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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