LA PAZ, Bolivia.- The Bolivian government allocated more than five hundred and fifty million dollars to the payment of Juancito Pinto Bonus to students of elementary school and high school to avoid dropout, according to data of the ministries of Education and Finances.

The subsidy helped to incorporate more children into school in the last eleven years, minister Roberto Aguilar said and added that in the urban area the school attendance rate for children between 6 and 11 years old increased to 97,7 percent.

The Juancito Pinto Bonus has a value of two hundred bolivianos and students receive it each year to encourage enrollment, permanence and completion of the school year.

Since 2006, the number of beneficiaries with that conditional money transfer program doubled and increased from one to more than two million schoolchildren.