Gail Alexan­der

The Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T&T (COSTAATT) has pro­vid­ed the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry with all the in­for­ma­tion on pay­ment of stipends to stu­dent nurs­es and the min­istry's Di­rec­tor of Fi­nance has in­di­cat­ed they are ful­ly en­gaged in do­ing the nec­es­sary to pay the stipends soon.

This was con­firmed yes­ter­day by COSTAATT pres­i­dent Dr Gillian Paul.

Paul re­spond­ed to T&T Guardian queries yes­ter­day af­ter word was re­ceived that stu­dent nurs­es in­tend to demon­strate out­side the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry in Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day in an ap­peal for pay­ment of the out­stand­ing stipends.

A stu­dent nurse from COSTAATT's South cam­pus said, "The stipends have been out­stand­ing for about five years. The is­sue af­fects all stu­dent nurs­es in the sys­tem across T&T. When I start­ed, the stipend was $1,200 month­ly."

The stu­dent added, "In Feb­ru­ary-April 2014 the stipends were 'miss­ing' and nev­er paid. It re­sumed af­ter. But they stopped in 2016-17. This year, COSTAATT asked us for up­dat­ed in­for­ma­tion on bank ac­counts. They al­so said they were await­ing min­istry ap­proval for stipend pay­ment - but we've heard noth­ing.

"Some stu­dents have grad­u­at­ed and left the sys­tem and it hasn't been paid. But some are still in the sys­tem. We aren't con­nect­ed to any unions, we're just ap­peal­ing for help. We're do­ing our best to make ends meet- trav­el­ling by bus, sell­ing bar­be­cues, some peo­ple don't eat three meals dai­ly."

The stu­dent added, "Cost of liv­ing hurt every­body and there are al­so tu­ition fee is­sues with the GATE sys­tem. Some ap­plied but got emails say­ing they weren't cov­ered by GATE. As a re­sult, some owe be­tween $8,800 to $34,000 in fees. Many dropped out.

"Our COSTAATT cam­pus ad­min­is­tra­tor tried very, very hard to help but the is­sue be­gan be­fore they start­ed the job. We're will­ing to work, we just hope this is­sue will be con­sid­ered."

COSTATT pres­i­dent Dr Paul, who said she un­der­stood the stu­dents' po­si­tion, said the in­sti­tu­tion pro­vid­ed the min­istry with all in­for­ma­tion for pay­ment of the stipends and the min­istry's Di­rec­tor of Fi­nance in­di­cat­ed they were "ful­ly en­gaged in do­ing the nec­es­sary to pay the stipends."

Paul said about 300 stu­dent nurs­es were af­fect­ed and pay­ments would be made to those who re­spond­ed to COSTATT's re­quest for ac­count and oth­er in­for­ma­tion. She said not all sub­mit­ted in­for­ma­tion, but most did.

She said sev­er­al mem­os went out on the is­sue and as soon as the min­istry pro­vides an up­date to COSTAATT, stu­dents will be giv­en the up­dates.

Queries sent to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­ceived no re­ply yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, oth­er Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials said the mat­ter was "be­ing worked on" ur­gent­ly.