C.D.B. to Loan D.F.C. $12 Million Dollars for Tertiary Education Financing
Moses Shyne Barrow
The Caribbean Development Bank has agreed to loan the Development Finance Corporation twelve million Belize dollars to support the financing of the Tertiary education in Belize. D.F.C., however, must first obtain the approval of the National Assembly to increase its foreign debt. As a result, this morning a loan motion to this end was brought to the House of Representatives. This motion raised a debate about the cost of tertiary education financing in Belize and hurdles financially challenged families face.
Moses Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“I have gone on record in this honorable house to speak on the importance of our students in particular, those at the Tertiary level having access to education. So I have no difficulty in supporting this attempt. What I would like commitment from is what I have recommended in this honorable house is changing the terms that the DFC offers in particular to students from financially challenged background. So you can have this twelve million Belize, six million US established, but there are still hurdles to those from impoverished financially challenge households.”
Francis Fonseca
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
“We had a very engaging discussion about the government’s priorities and the direction we want the DFC to take and high on that agenda and one of our top priorities was education how can we provide more opportunities to ensure that through DFCs portfolios and financing windows that they would be able to provide low cost access to financing for our students at different levels but a specific focus on higher education, in this case Tertiary education. It is targeted financing so that the DFC working along with the Ministry to Education understand that there are priority areas for economic and national development of Belize. So, there are specific areas we want to have these loans targeted in, in terms of Engineering, Agriculture, in areas IT as well.”
Again, the funds will be used to facilitate the financing of D.F.C.’s Student Loan Program.
