The Public Sector Budget Bill for 2016 is geared to achieving a high-quality education, Prime Minister Pedro Cateriano announced.
Cateriano and Finance Minister Alonso Segura present the Public Sector Budget Bill for 2016 before the Congress of the Republic.
It aims at allocating funds worth S/.138.49 billion (about US$42.7 billion) for the central, regional and local governments during the upcoming fiscal year.
Within this framework, the Prime Minister indicated that 3.85% of Peru’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be allocated to the education sector.
“These resources are allocated to continue with the Education Quality Enhancement strategy,” Cateriano underlined while addressing parliamentarians.
He went on to add that revaluing the teaching career, reducing the infrastructure gap, enhancing the quality of learning and modernizing the public governance are the main pillars to enhance education in the country in accordance with guidelines set by the National Educational Project.
With regard to reducing the infrastructure gap, the budget aims at allocating funds for executing investment projects, as well as for equipping educational institutions -at the national level- worth S/.4.88 billion (about US$1.52 billion).
The said resources are geared towards carrying out improvement works on educational centers at risk, replacing equipment, building high performance schools (COARs) and executing projects associated with the Lima 2019 Pan American Games.
With regard to learning quality, the grants worth S/.903 million (about US$282 million) are included in the Beca 18 (grant program). Those will enable to fund 48,000 undergraduate-, 4,000 special- and 1,000 graduate scholarships.
Likewise, the budget comprises the implementation of the full school day program and the national English teaching policy designed to benefit 274,000 students.
Eight additional COARs are expected to be built. It would lead to a total of 22 by 2016, which would total S/.213 million (about US$66.56 million).
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