For­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of ne­glect­ing the na­tion’s youth and ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor in its 2026 na­tion­al bud­get, warn­ing that progress made over the past decade is be­ing re­versed.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance de­vot­ed min­i­mal at­ten­tion to ed­u­ca­tion in his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, de­scrib­ing it as “al­most an af­ter­thought.”

“Ed­u­ca­tion was al­most left out of the bud­get con­tri­bu­tion,” she said. “The fo­cus was mi­nus­cule, al­most like an af­ter­thought—1,800 words de­vot­ed to ed­u­ca­tion and youth out of 20,000 words de­liv­ered over three hours. That’s less than nine per cent.”

She said the Gov­ern­ment spent far more time dis­cussing tax­a­tion than ad­dress­ing the coun­try’s ed­u­ca­tion needs.

“Tax­a­tion took up 21 per cent—one-fifth of the time—mak­ing it the sin­gle largest the­mat­ic area in the bud­get, sur­pass­ing en­er­gy, so­cial pro­grammes, and of course, ed­u­ca­tion,” she said.

The for­mer min­is­ter said the re­al is­sues fac­ing young peo­ple were ig­nored, not­ing that an es­ti­mat­ed 250,000 youth in T&T are not in­volved in ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment, or train­ing.

She al­so ac­cused the UNC Gov­ern­ment of cut­ting pro­grammes that sup­port vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies and stu­dents.

“The UNC cal­lous­ly, heart­less­ly, un­car­ing­ly and cold­heart­ed­ly fired 40,000 peo­ple, then cut fund­ing to pro­grammes of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion de­signed to sup­port vul­ner­a­ble and at-risk stu­dents,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She said the Re­me­di­al Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme, which as­sists strug­gling stu­dents, was re­duced by 37 per cent, lim­it­ing its reach.

She al­so claimed that the Book Grant Pro­gramme—in­tro­duced un­der the PNM—was com­plete­ly re­moved from the bud­get.

“Not a cent al­lo­cat­ed to the book grant. That means the UNC has slashed, cut, and aban­doned the pro­gramme. Twen­ty thou­sand vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren now have no op­tion to get some help to go to school,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said fund­ing for the School Feed­ing Pro­gramme was al­so re­duced by $10 mil­lion, or four per cent.

She fur­ther ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of mis­lead­ing the pub­lic by pre­sent­ing ex­ist­ing projects as new ini­tia­tives.

“That is the bla­tant de­cep­tion I am speak­ing about—claim­ing ex­ist­ing projects as new ini­tia­tives,” she said, cit­ing the Next Class learn­ing sys­tem as an ex­am­ple. “Imag­ine my sur­prise when the UNC re­brands Next Class and then says that it’s a new ini­tia­tive.”

The for­mer min­is­ter said spend­ing on school re­pairs had “col­lapsed” un­der the UNC.

“In 2024, the Gov­ern­ment spent $98 mil­lion from the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund (IDF) for school re­pair. In 2025, on­ly $26 mil­lion was ex­pend­ed out of $192 mil­lion,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said she found no re­al com­mit­ment to ed­u­ca­tion in the 2026 bud­get.

“The UNC’s 2025 bud­get has re­ceived a triple-F rat­ing — fake, fraud­u­lent, fail­ure,” she said.