Food vouchers for schools from next term

Submitted by TemoL on Wed, 17/08/2011 - 8:30am

The Ministry of Education is processing application forms for food vouchers that were distributed to rural and remote schools, and Permanent secretary Dr Brij Lal said some schools were yet to send in their forms.

“We have so far prepared application forms and all the forms have been distributed to rural and very remote schools. The forms have gone out to the schools and the head teachers have worked with students and parents. They are filling the forms while some forms have already been filled and sent to the ministry,” Dr Lal said.

He said Government had allocated a sum of $1.32million under the Expanded Food Voucher Program to assist those rural primary school students who came from disadvantaged families.

Dr Lal highlighted that those students whose parents were already receiving social welfare assistance would not receive food vouchers.

“That is also checked and vetted by the Ministry of Social Welfare to make sure that those parents are not receiving any other social welfare benefits. Soon we’ll start processing those forms and start issuing the food vouchers,” he said.

“We are hopeful that those students who qualify, will start getting their vouchers from the beginning of the third term.”

More than 4,404 needy students will benefit from this assistance.