$200 Back-to-School support sufficient: Finance Minister

Minister for Finance Esrom Immanuel has dismissed calls to increase the Government's Back-to-School support to $300.

Mr Immanuel said the current $200 assistance is already sufficient and may even be slightly more than necessary.

When questioned about Opposition MP Rinesh Sharma’s call to raise the support to $300 due to cost of living pressures, Mr Immanuel said alternative assistance programmes were available.

“We have other avenues to cater for that, what they're saying, cost of living,” Mr Immanuel told this masthead in Parliament yesterday.

“So there are a lot of assistance and benefits.”

The Minister said when broken down by the cost of individual school items, $200 was adequate to cover essential needs like uniforms, bags, shoes, and stationery.

“If you take $200 and you break it down to the cost of items, it’s sufficient, probably little on the higher side,” he said, suggesting the amount may already exceed what is strictly needed for essential school supplies.

When pressed whether $300 would be a more appropriate amount, Mr Immanuel simply replied: “No.”

Asked if an increase might be considered in the future, he responded: “Yeah, probably later.”

Mr Sharma had argued in Parliament that the $200 support was insufficient, particularly when weighed against the $250 involuntary school levy many schools charge.

He said families were struggling with high VAT and rising living costs, and called for the support to be raised to $300 per child to provide meaningful relief.

The Government has allocated $40 million for the 2026 Back-to-School programme, with applications closing December 12.

Payments will begin January 16 via M-PAiSA and MyCash.