Mrs. Shellya Rogers-Webster
During her presentation at the Government press conference on Monday, March 31st, 2025, the Honourable Minister of Education, Mrs. Shellya Rogers-Webster, expressed her concern over the insufficient Education budget for 2025.
“The Education budget is just over EC$41 Million. Only EC$10 of that amount goes towards operations, education resources and programming,” she noted. “About EC$30 Million of the Education budget is earmarked for personal emoluments, and that is a significant chunk of the budget.”
The Minister observed that many teachers in the Department of Education have significant pay gaps, and it is obvious that little is invested in education outside of personal emoluments.
She promised that priority will be definitely given on making adjustments to the budget, while looking at it from the capital side of education in terms of people development, resource development, and giving teachers the tools that they need to function at their optimum capacity.
“I want to assure all teachers and other officials in Education,” she said, “that I am taking note of these constraints that exist, and I will be making sure that we prioritize education.”
The Minister insisted that one area which she finds very important to be addressed is the area of Childhood Education. “I am not sure if the public is aware of it, but the Early Childhood Education teachers are paid significantly less than teachers at the primary and secondary levels. This is something that is a challenge,” she said. “There is also less opportunities for early childhood teacher training. As a result, Early Childhood Education teachers tend to feel that they are at a disadvantage.”
“But outside of actual teaching,” she mentioned, “the resources that are available to Early Childhood Education teachers tend to be much less when compared to applicable resources for education on the primary and secondary levels.”
“For me, personally,” she stressed, “I believe that if we are serious about education, then we need to invest as much as possible in it at a foundational level just as much as we invest at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. I therefore think we must have a strategic and systematic approach that starts with education at an early stage.
“I want to assure all early educators that I am committed to making investments in Early Childhood Education,” she affirmed.
“Apart from Early Childhood Education, another area that we are keen on investing more resources in is Special Needs Education,” she said.” “We know that parents of children who have special needs are challenged with resource shortages and the lack of professionals to guide their challenged children. We don’t have a local Occupational Therapist, but we are keen on looking into recruiting persons for such a position.”
Meanwhile, Minister Rogers-Webster also spoke to the development and completion of the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) block at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School, Quarter Campus. She noted that since last year, the work on this project had gone to be processed for procurement, and there had been a challenge in the procurement phase.
“However, I have been assured by MICUH,” she said, “that the procurement for the TVET block is going to continue during the next week. Hopefully, then, within the next couple of weeks we will receive an update on whether or not the procurement process would have been successful.”
The Minister emphatically stated that the Anguilla United Front administration is keen on pushing forward the TVET block. “We are very keen on having it operational as soon as possible,” she pledged.
