The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, Strategic Planning, National Development and Statistics, has rolled out the Back to School Support for the school year 2023.
In light of the positive response from parents, the Ministry urges them to submit their completed applications by January 20 to the respective schools.
There has been a number of enquiries on whether the guardians can apply for this support.
As announced by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance, in the first instance, applications are open to parents only.
Applications for guardians will be open at a later date which will be announced in due course along with the amendments to the application form.
This has been done to prevent parents as well as guardians applying for the same child twice.
The Ministry, therefore, requests that guardians await official announcement of when they can start applying for this assistance.
There have also been enquiries about whether students from private schools can apply for this assistance.
The Ministry would like to inform the public that students in private schools whose annual gross parental income is below $50,000 can apply for this assistance through their schools.
Heads of Schools will then be required to submit the applications to the nearest District Office. The District Office will verify the forms and submit them to the Headquarters for processing.
The deadline for applications from private schools remains 20 January so the forms should reach the District Office by this date.
The Ministry reminds parents that for students who are yet to be enrolled in the new school (Year 8moving to Year 9) they can apply for the initiative at the old school.
Forms are available on the Ministry website and at the schools. International students are not eligible to apply for the assistance.
The first batch of payments to successful applicants will be made on 25 January 2023.
