Covid-19 a challenge for department, Uguro says

By LULU MARK
THE Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has been one of the biggest challenges the Department of Education (DoE) has had to deal with since last year, Minister Jimmy Uguro says.
Uguro said this when presenting the DoE 2020 annual report in Parliament yesterday.
He said with the support of development partners, the department developed and launched the education in emergency response and recovery plan last year.
“This plan secured more than K30 million from the global partnership for education to fund key priorities,” he said.
“A further K10 million was secured from the Australian government to support water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in schools, as well as provide the Covid-19 support to secondary schools.” Uguro said the department received over K640 million (K640,997,550) to implement activities and programmes last year.
He said there was a shortfall of K133 million (K133,566,830).
Uguro said the budget covered the Education Department, National Capital District education services and Teaching Service Commission and Office of Library and Archives.
“The major concerns and issues last year related to inconsistent funding for core functions of department,” he said.
“More importantly is the need for increased funding to implement the new school structure 1-6-6 which requires huge capital investment.”
Uguro said in terms of challenges, the major difficulties experienced last year were related to financing of core functions and schools, infrastructure and provincial capacity to provide education services.