By Alieu Amara Suwu
Ministry of Technical and Higher Education has requested 183.399.8 new Leones as a total budget for their 2023 Financial Year.
The Ministry made this request at the ongoing budget hearing at the Ministry of Finance, on Thursday 21st September 2022.
Presenting their budget for the said year, it is revealed that the total amount that has been requested, NLe 20,882.1 will be for general administration and support services; NLe 51,570.1 for Technical and Higher education; NLe 6,422.5 for Tertiary Education Commission; NLe 91,338.6 for Universities Division; NLe 8,712.0 for Teacher Training Colleges and Polytechnics; NLe 2000.0 for support to TVET programmes (GTIs); NLe 1,674.6 for Sierra Leone Archives and NLe 800.0 for Mattru Nursing School. Their budget ceiling (of recurrent expenditure) is NLe 150,817.1.
Talking on their proposed key deliverables for 2023, they said they are to establish new and upgrade existing Technical and Higher Education Institutions: operationalise the Mono University of Science and Technology, establish and operationalise six TVET institutions, provide modern teaching and learning materials to TVET and tertiary institutions and develop and operationalise the Centralised Admission System.
Other deliverables are, they want to provide support to students locally and international; implementation of the student loan scheme and review and implement the GIA policy. Also, they are to give support to free quality education: review, standardize and harmonise curriculum for teacher education and validation, popularisation and implementation of the teaching practice policy. And they are to implement the 2019 TVET policy and lastly, popularise, implement and monitor the Education Sector Plan 2022-2026.
The Ministry further explained public investment program budget request – ongoing projects from development partners – and public investment program budget request – ongoing projects for Government of Sierra Leone.
