In September 2004, the previous People's National Movement administration began the Gate (Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses) programme, which allowed all citizens of T&T-regardless of their age, ethnicity, gender, religion or any other distinguishing feature-to access tertiary-level institutions with the State picking up 100 per cent of their tuition fees at the under-graduate level and 50 per cent of their fees at the post-graduate level.
The Gate programme replaced the Dollar-for-Dollar programme through which the Government paid half the cost of tuition fees for the academic year for all new students enrolled in public institutions from September 2001.
The Government, in 2004, was able to go from paying half the tuition fees for T&T students enrolled in public institutions to 100 per cent of the fees of such students enrolled in either public or private institutions as a result of the enhanced revenue the State enjoyed from the Atlantic LNG production facilities at Point Fortin.
Gate was an improvement over the Dollar-for-Dollar programme in that it doubled the quantum of support that the State was willing and able to provide to T&T citizens to 100 per cent, it expanded access to include privately-run tertiary level institutions and it facilitated the payment of half of the fees for graduate students.
One of the main objectives of the Government at the time in establishing Gate was to make tertiary education affordable to all so that no citizen would be denied tertiary education because of inability to pay.
The impact of Gate in raising this country's tertiary participation rate has been quite impressive. For the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), enrolment increased to 18,708 students in the 2011-12 academic year from 12,578 in the 2003-04 academic year-which indicates a 49 per cent hike in eight years.
But it is clear that Gate is much more than UWI as the number of students benefitting from the Gate programme totalled 45,040 in fiscal year 2010/2011, when UWI St Augustine's enrolment was 17,636. As a result of the establishment of Gate, thousands of T&T students who previously were not able to afford tertiary-level education got an opportunity to advance their education in a way that opened up the possibility of increasing their incomes.
The clear link between educational attainment and lifetime income has been well established in countless academic studies over time and throughout the world. That body of research indicates that those who graduate from tertiary-level institutions are far more likely to earn compensation that is above the poverty line than those who do not.
In the Caribbean context, it is also true that for the majority of T&T's population, whose antecedents would have been slaves or indentured labourers, educational attainment has been viewed as one of the fastest ways to achieve social and financial mobility.
It is through the Gate that the bright secondary school graduate from Korea Village or Never Dirty is now able to proceed to the UWI to study to become a doctor, lawyer, accountant, teacher, scientist, researcher or a journalist without their family being driven to the edge of bankruptcy to pay university fees.
Given the indisputable link between education and mobility, it can be argued that the Gate programme is the ultimate poverty eradication tool, lifting the incomes of thousands of households throughout the length and breadth of the country-both as a result of the higher wage possibilities and also because families are able to save monies that would have had to be paid out in university fees.
In the context of the obvious long-term societal benefit of Gate, it is puzzling that a young UWI economist like Dr Roger Hosein, who is also a Central Bank director, could conclude that the programme is a prime example of the "improper use" of the natural gas windfall and advocate returning to the Dollar-for-Dollar programme, which would force thousands of parents seeking social mobility for their children, or themselves, to dig into their savings or go into debt.
If Dr Hosein's point is that the State's programme of transfers and subsidies is not sustainable in the medium term given T&T's revenue possibilities, he would be advised to focus his analysis on other areas including the fuel subsidy, which is projected to cost taxpayers $4.5 billion in 2013 compared with Gate's $784 million.
He should also consider a paradigm shift that changes the consideration of Gate from a burdensome subsidy to investment in T&T's human resource development. Given its importance in raising people out of poverty and the transformative possibilities of training students for careers in entrepreneurship and innovation, Gate is the last "subsidy" that this or any Government should consider scrapping.
