KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (GATE) pro­gramme is once again un­der re­view fol­low­ing a $35 mil­lion de­crease in bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day. “I can­not give you any more in­for­ma­tion oth­er than those four words: GATE is un­der re­view,” Im­bert said dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee re­view of the 2021 Bud­get.He was re­spond­ing to Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein, who asked whether the cut meant Gov­ern­ment would re­duce the num­ber of ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes fund­ed by GATE.

In 2019 and 2020, the Gov­ern­ment had al­lo­cat­ed $435 mil­lion to GATE but that fig­ure is now $400 mil­lion for 2021.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Im­bert would on­ly say that Par­lia­ment will get a re­port on the GATE re­view soon. 
When asked for de­tails of the re­view com­mit­tee, he said: “There is no com­mit­tee. The Gov­ern­ment is com­prised of the Cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the min­istry with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ed­u­ca­tion is the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. So the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go will be ad­vised by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, and then the Cab­i­net will take a de­ci­sion. GATE is un­der re­view. Not on­ly GATE, but many oth­er things are un­der re­view.”

With no fur­ther dis­cus­sion on the mat­ter, Ho­sein sur­mised that there would be a cut in the pro­gramme.
The GATE pro­gramme be­gan in 2004 and pro­vides fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to cit­i­zens who pur­sue ap­proved pro­grammes at pub­lic and pri­vate ter­tiary lev­el in­sti­tu­tions both lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly. The Fund­ing and Grants Ad­min­is­tra­tion Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion man­ages this pro­gramme.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on how the cut would af­fect the pro­gramme from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the Gov­ern­ment would share the de­tails once the re­view is com­plete.

In 2016, the Gov­ern­ment ap­point­ed a task force to re­view GATE, say­ing that it had spent $6.4 bil­lion in 12 years on the pro­gramme. A re­port from the task force in­di­cat­ed that a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of stu­dents who ac­cessed GATE fund­ing came from fam­i­lies that fell in the mid­dle to high-in­come groups of so­ci­ety and did not need 100 per cent fund­ing. These stu­dents were el­i­gi­ble for 50 per cent.

The min­istry then in­tro­duced a Means Test to en­sure re­cip­i­ents of 100 per cent GATE fund­ing were those tru­ly in need based on so­cio-eco­nom­ic stand­ing.
Col­lege of Sci­ence Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts (COSTAATT) pres­i­dent Dr Gillian Paul yes­ter­day said fur­ther cuts to GATE fund­ing would se­vere­ly af­fect the col­lege and stu­dents. How­ev­er, Paul said she would not spec­u­late on the out­come and would await fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.
“It (cuts) would, quite se­vere­ly, be­cause of the pro­file of the stu­dents we serve. A large per­cent­age of our stu­dent pop­u­la­tion is al­ready fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial chal­lenges at this time. We have al­ready seen in the last fis­cal year how the pan­dem­ic af­fect­ed them.

“A num­ber of them had to with­draw from class­es be­cause of fi­nan­cial chal­lenges and is­sues with child­care, and very few of them will be able to pay for cours­es if GATE fund­ing is re­duced fur­ther. The col­lege de­pends heav­i­ly and GATE to fi­nance its op­er­a­tion,” Paul said.

If there are cuts to fund­ing, Paul said, the col­lege would look at oth­er op­tions, in­clud­ing how man­ages its op­er­a­tions and de­creas­es in pro­grammes and staff, al­though not­ing this would be the last con­sid­er­a­tion.

Mean­while, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Guild pres­i­dent War­ren An­der­son yes­ter­day urged the Gov­ern­ment to take in­to ac­count the fi­nan­cial con­straints be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by many be­cause of the pan­dem­ic dur­ing the re­view of the pro­gramme. He said many stu­dents had been suf­fer­ing since the start of the pan­dem­ic, so much so that the guild has had to as­sist some with meals and oth­er ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties.

An­der­son said while the Guild is not op­posed to a re­view, he is hop­ing there will be grace in Gov­ern­ment’s de­lib­er­a­tions. He al­so sug­gest­ed that any change to the pro­gramme take ef­fect dur­ing the next aca­d­e­m­ic year.