The Book Grant and School Sup­plies Pro­gramme is now in doubt af­ter the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter con­firmed it is cur­rent­ly un­der re­view. No funds have been al­lo­cat­ed to the ini­tia­tive in this fi­nan­cial year.

Dur­ing last evening’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, when the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s $5.2 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion came un­der scruti­ny, St Ann’s East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ques­tioned why there was no al­lo­ca­tion for the pro­gramme in fis­cal 2026.

Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath re­spond­ed, “Mr Chair­man, through you, this grant, we will look at it for the mid-term re­view.”

Seek­ing clar­i­ty, Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly asked, “So, the ques­tion, can I just con­firm, when you say you will look at it for the mid-term re­view, is it that you will al­lo­cate in the mid-term re­view, or is it that you’re look­ing to de­ter­mine whether or not you will al­lo­cate?”

How­ev­er, Dowlath would on­ly re­peat, “Chair­man, through you, it’s present­ly un­der re­view.”

Again, Gads­by-Dol­ly sought fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

“So, it’s cur­rent­ly un­der re­view means, I’m just try­ing to be very clear, is it that it’s un­der re­view whether or not you are go­ing to sup­ply mon­ey to this item? That is what’s un­der re­view? Or is the amount un­der re­view?”

The Chair of the pro­ceed­ings, Jagdeo Singh, then stepped in, be­liev­ing the ques­tion had been asked and an­swered suf­fi­cient­ly.

“I think you have to be fair in your in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the an­swer. The very spe­cif­ic ques­tion you asked was whether or not the mid-year re­view will de­ter­mine whether or not it was go­ing to con­tin­ue or the amount it was go­ing to con­tain. The Min­is­ter has an­swered to the best of his abil­i­ty that it con­tin­ues to be un­der re­view, and that is the in­ter­pre­ta­tion,” Singh said.

How­ev­er, Singh in­vit­ed Gads­by-Dol­ly to ask more ques­tions if she was un­sat­is­fied with the an­swer.

She then sought to ask the ques­tion more di­rect­ly.

“Mr Chair­man, I’m sim­ply ask­ing, will the book grant be giv­en in this fis­cal, or will it not be giv­en? Maybe I should clar­i­fy it.”

Dowlath re­spond­ed, “As I in­di­cat­ed, Chair­man, through you, that the book grant is un­der re­view.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly shot back, “I will take that to mean that you’re not sure, Min­is­ter.”

The gov­ern­ment bench was not hap­py with her in­ter­pre­ta­tion, caus­ing the Chair­man to in­ter­vene again be­fore mov­ing on with pro­ceed­ings.

The Book Grant Pro­gramme in the Trinidad and To­ba­go 2025 bud­get was al­lo­cat­ed $20 mil­lion.

This fund­ing was in­tend­ed to pro­vide a $1,000 grant for school sup­plies and books to 20,000 el­i­gi­ble stu­dents at the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary lev­els. The pro­gramme tar­gets fi­nan­cial­ly dis­ad­van­taged stu­dents, with el­i­gi­bil­i­ty de­ter­mined by a means test.

Mean­while, Dowlath said the lap­tops promised to Form One stu­dents, ini­tial­ly ex­pect­ed at the be­gin­ning of the new school term, would be de­liv­ered at the end of it.

Dur­ing the SFC’s pro­ceed­ings late last evening, Gads­by-Dol­ly asked, “Mr Chair­man, un­der line item 042, can the Min­is­ter in­di­cate where, at what point will the lap­tops which are al­lo­cat­ed, there’s an in­crease of 100 mil­lion un­der ac­qui­si­tion and de­liv­ery of lap­tops and tablets, can the Min­is­ter in­di­cate the time­line for the de­liv­ery of the lap­tops which were promised in Au­gust, Sep­tem­ber, and now we have reached Oc­to­ber.”

Dowlath re­spond­ed, “Chair­man, through you, the lap­tops will be de­liv­ered by the end of this term, this aca­d­e­m­ic term.”

Seek­ing a spe­cif­ic date, Gads­by-Dol­ly asked, “You said by the end of the term. When does the term end?”

“De­cem­ber,” Dowlath re­spond­ed, “11th of De­cem­ber.”

“So, Au­gust to Sep­tem­ber, Oc­to­ber to De­cem­ber, okay. Thank you,” Gads­by-Dol­ly replied.

The gov­ern­ment had promised 18,000 lap­tops this aca­d­e­m­ic year for the Form One stu­dent pop­u­la­tion.