The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is stat­ing cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that there has been no re­duc­tion in the fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed an­nu­al­ly to thir­teen (13) reg­is­tered Pri­vate Spe­cial Schools.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Min­istry said the an­nu­al amount cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ed was ap­proved at eleven mil­lion, five hun­dred and forty thou­sand dol­lars ($TT$11,540,000) for a pe­ri­od of five (5) years from aca­d­e­m­ic year 2021/22. 

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said it ad­min­is­ters twelve (12) Pub­lic Spe­cial Schools, owned and com­plete­ly fund­ed by the Gov­ern­ment; and al­so pro­vides fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, on the ba­sis of a per-stu­dent rate, to thir­teen (13) Pri­vate Spe­cial Schools, as it is done for stu­dents placed at twelve (12) Pri­vate Sec­ondary Schools. It ex­plained that there is an ap­proved rate, per stu­dent, in all cas­es. 

“The Min­istry takes care­ful note of a me­dia re­port, high­light­ing the case of a spe­cif­ic Pri­vate Spe­cial Needs School that has been hav­ing fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties for some time. While this is re­gret­table, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion can­not ex­tend fund­ing to this pri­vate in­sti­tu­tion, out­side of the ap­proved frame­work, to shore up its fi­nan­cial po­si­tion. This was re­it­er­at­ed at a re­cent meet­ing be­tween Min­istry of­fi­cials and the School's pro­pri­etors. There­fore, to in­sin­u­ate that the fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties faced by the school are caused by a pol­i­cy de­ci­sion of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­lead­ing.”

It said the Gov­ern­ment, through the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, con­tin­ues to sup­port young cit­i­zens with spe­cial needs through the pro­vi­sion of twelve (12) Pub­lic Spe­cial Schools, an­nu­al fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to­talling eleven mil­lion, five hun­dred and forty thou­sand dol­lars ($11,540,000) to thir­teen (13) Pri­vate Spe­cial Schools, the pro­vi­sion of over four hun­dred (400) stu­dent aides to stu­dents with spe­cial needs in the main­stream ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, and a cadre of Spe­cial Ed­u­ca­tion staff through­out the ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­tricts. 

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said it will con­tin­ue to build and strength­en these sys­tems in or­der to en­sure eq­ui­ty in ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for all cit­i­zens.