Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath is de­fend­ing the late dis­tri­b­u­tion of the School Sup­plies and Book Grant, say­ing the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion had just six weeks to ver­i­fy 20,744 ap­pli­ca­tions.

Dowlath made the com­ments while on a tour of schools ahead of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

He said the grant had in­creased by 744 this year and the au­tho­ri­sa­tion for the book grant was re­ceived in June.

How­ev­er, Dowlath said as of Thurs­day, more than half of the grants, val­ued at over $10 mil­lion, had been dis­trib­uted. Dowlath as­sured par­ents that stu­dents would not be pe­nalised if they did not have all their sup­plies when they re­turn to school.

He said prin­ci­pals had been ad­vised to give par­ents a two-week win­dow to pur­chase their chil­dren’s school sup­plies.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said the de­lays were plac­ing ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on dis­ad­van­taged fam­i­lies who de­pend on the as­sis­tance to pre­pare their chil­dren for the new school year.

For­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has al­so been crit­i­cal of the late dis­tri­b­u­tion of the grant.