BUDGET 2025: $13.1 billion for ‘Free UG’ as education sector gets $175 billion allocation

Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh announced that key initiatives in Guyana’s education sector, be it the construction of new schools or supporting the children’s school feeding programme, will continue and expand with the massive $175 billion allocation in the 2025 National Budget.

And the University of Guyana got a $13.1 billion allocation, a sum needed to finance the operations of the institution as the government has abolished tuition fees from January 2025.

“This will benefit in excess of 11,000 current students (at UG) and all new students,” Dr. Singh said during his marathon presentation of the 2025 National Budget.

Additionally, the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) got a $4.4 billion allocation. This is a scholarship venture from the government which has so far seen nearly 30,000 individuals get scholarships with over 8,000 graduating already. With the $4.4 billion sum, Dr. Singh said about 9,000 additional scholarships will be offered this year.

we offered 29,758 scholarships for persons to pursue online studies at several universities across the world. To date, over 8,000 persons graduated from GOAL programmes, and $4.4 billion is allocated to offer 9,000 more scholarships in 2025.

Additional sums have been allocated to continue access to the Coursera platform, and the the One Guyana digital programme. The government is also investing in expanding access to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

Other highlights in the budget for the education sector include:

• $36.2 billion to advance works needed for the construction of several schools
• $5.5 billion for the National School Feeding programme
• Almost $2 billion for reading books, workbooks and textbooks

Editor’s note: The Finance Minister announced that UG was getting a $13.1 billion allocation in his budget presentation. However, his budget speech reflects a $13.4 billion allocation.