Year 2 of Education Expo a Success
The Ministry of Education today hosted its second annual B-TOO Education Expo. High school students from across the country filed into the Belize Civic Center to get first-hand information from several tertiary level education institutions with regards to opportunities and options in furthering their studies. The purpose of the expo was to encourage young men and women to pursue their dreams and obtain an undergraduate and graduate degree. News Five’s Hipolito Novelo reports.
Hipolito Novelo, Reporting
The second annual Belize Tertiary Options and Opportunity Expo got underway today at the Belize City Civic Center. Hundreds of high school students from across the country had the chance to explore their options and opportunities in obtaining higher education.
Patrick Faber
Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“This is a wonderful chance if you are looking for higher education, if you are looking for further studies after you have finished high school or even sixth form for you to get those opportunities this is the place to be.”
The education expo included tertiary institutions, local and international, vocational and technical in an effort to convince students to pursue higher education. Located in San Roman Village, Corozal Centro Escolar Mexico Junior College prides itself in being both a vocational and technical tertiary level institution.
Pearla Cal Marin
Pearla Cal Marin, Centro Escolar Mexico Junior College
“At CEMJC we offer different programs catering to the vocational-technical field. These programs include tourism, architecture, biology natural resources management and several others. The idea of this institution is that it is vocational technical. We take very much pride in that. It is whereby these students will apply to obtain an associate degree in the these vocational and technical field. Here in our institution the idea is to create access to education to all our students in the area.”
Canaan Smith
Canaan Smith, Student, Centro Escolar Mexico Junior College
“It is a very amazing institution. The teachers are very well skilled knowledgeable about their subjects that they are teaching. They are very welcoming to the students especially if you aren’t very for example hasn’t had a background in a certain subject, they work with you to bring you on a certain level.”
Found in 2003, Galen University has established itself as one of the leading universities, not only in Belize but in the region. The university offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate degrees. The programmes are offered in a variety of formats including online course delivery.
Judy Munoz
Judy Munoz, Marketing Director, Galen University
“They come to Galen because we have classes that are taught online as well as on Campus. So someone can keep their job during the day and go to school at night and earn degree that is recognized not only in Belize but in other countries like Canada and the United States.”
Dorian Barrow
Dorian Barrow, Dean, Faculty of Education, Galen University
“We have only institution in the country that has a one hundred percent online primary education program. So you can keep your job wherever you are. We have people from all over the country, from Corazon Creek in the south to all the way to Xiabe in the north, Chunox in the north to do that particular program.”
Gina Anderson
Gina Anderson, Galen University
“We have scholarships. We have installment plans and we have a loan program as well. It is very low-interest rate probably the best in the market right now. So if you come with a partial scholarship we can complement it with we can complement it with an installment plan. We can also complement it with a loan. We also have a new program called our work study program where you could work while you earn your tuition at Galen.”
Like Galen University, several other schools have financial assistance programmes for underprivileged students. At the expo today, financial institutions such as the Development Finance Cooperation set up booths encouraging students who need financial assistance to apply for their affordable student loan.
Patrick Faber
“They have special rates for our students. Some of them, I know the DFC, they allow students to borrow monies and then they don’t have to pay back while they are studying. Then they have that kind of grace period, I think it is something like six months after they return they give them the grace period for them to find a job. And in the interim, while they are studying, they just pay the interest on the loan, but don’t start paying back the principal. And I am being told that the DFC has a special rate for people who come from poor, socio-economic households. It’s a much lower rate and basically everybody who comes from a single parent home qualifies. And so this is the kind of information we want people to access.”
Hipolito Novelo, News Five.
