Faced with an escalating budget deficit, the Eritrean government has come up with a new way to solicit more money from parents of students.  The fund is called Teachers Support [metebab�E memahran] and was dreamed up by the Red Sea Comprehensive Parents Committee, which is made up of veteran fighters, PFDJ cadres and ministers� wives.

Under this plan, parents are required to contribute 10-20 Nakfas per month per student towards the fund.  Parents already pay 200-250 Nakfas per year per student and the new requirement is expected to pose a problem for parents with three children.  The idea is to maintain central authority of the schools' curriculum and management, while devolving the funding responsibilities to the localities.

Meanwhile, the government has designed yet another requirement to ensure that there are no loopholes to avoid military draft.  Effective 2006-07, all male students who do not score a minimum of 70% in the high school entrance test will be immediately sent to Kiloma for military training.  Those who meet the minimum requirements will be sent to Sawa for high school completion, followed by military training.   Students used to deliberately fail classes to avoid graduation and referral to military training: under the new policy, if a student reaches the compulsory service age, he will be sent to Kiloma regardless of the grade he is attending.

The new policy is limited to boys only.  The government has yet to design an effective policy regarding females.