KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial con­straints, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlat has con­firmed that 18,000 lap­tops will be dis­trib­uted to all Form One stu­dents, re­gard­less of their par­ents’ in­come lev­el.

This an­nounce­ment came as the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ap­proved a $455.1 mil­lion in­crease to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s bud­get on Mon­day.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert asked whether lap­tops would be dis­trib­uted to stu­dents “both rich and poor, re­gard­less of wealth”. In re­sponse, Dowlat and his gov­ern­ment col­leagues replied em­phat­i­cal­ly, “All stu­dents,” while thump­ing their desks in sup­port.

“I do not have the da­ta... Yes... and the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed if a stu­dent and par­ents do not want the lap­top, well …” Dowlat added.

Diego Mar­tin West MP Hans des Vi­gnes ques­tioned whether a means test should be in­tro­duced, point­ing to the $76 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for lap­tops and tablets and the Gov­ern­ment’s tight fis­cal space.

“Giv­en that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance stat­ed that there are so many con­straints, wouldn’t it be more fis­cal­ly re­spon­si­ble to do a means test for this par­tic­u­lar item?” des Vi­gnes asked.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo told des Vi­gnes that while he may not ful­ly grasp the con­cept of equal­i­ty when it comes to chil­dren, pri­or­i­ty must be giv­en to equal­i­ty.

Des Vi­gnes coun­tered, “Per­haps the min­is­ter does not un­der­stand equal­i­ty and eq­ui­ty and how those two things can be dif­fer­ent.”

Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca MP Do­minic Ro­main then asked whether in­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty de­vices would be pro­vid­ed for stu­dents who lack home ac­cess.

Dowlat said the de­vices meet all soft­ware and hard­ware re­quire­ments for Form One stu­dents. He added that the min­istry is still cost­ing the nec­es­sary con­nec­tiv­i­ty com­po­nents and will pro­vide full de­tails, in­clud­ing de­liv­ery dates, once fi­nalised.

On the mat­ter of in­fra­struc­ture, Dowlat said the $83 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for school re­pairs falls short of what is need­ed. Of the 823 schools as­sessed, on­ly 279 are in­clud­ed in up­com­ing works—mean­ing 544 have been left off the list.

He clar­i­fied that this al­lo­ca­tion does not cov­er projects al­ready com­plet­ed or un­der­way, for which pay­ments are still owed. Re­pairs are sched­uled to be­gin in the first week of the Ju­ly-Au­gust school hol­i­days un­less emer­gency works are re­quired ear­li­er.

Tan­coo added that every school re­quires some lev­el of re­pair, blam­ing the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. “Some schools are in more des­per­ate need than oth­ers, and the min­is­ter has had to pri­ori­tise based on the state of dis­re­pair left by your gov­ern­ment,” he said.

The de­bate grew more heat­ed when for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ques­tioned an ad­di­tion­al $26 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices, ask­ing why it did not cov­er the min­istry’s ar­rears to sev­en con­trac­tors.

The Gov­ern­ment bench re­spond­ed with laugh­ter. Tan­coo, how­ev­er, said her ques­tion was “iron­ic, sad, and un­for­tu­nate”.

He stat­ed, “Both Mr Im­bert and Mr Man­ning ad­mit­ted they left the coun­try in a dif­fi­cult fi­nan­cial state. As Fi­nance Min­is­ter, I would be anx­ious to pro­vide every cent need­ed, but be­cause of the con­straints left by your gov­ern­ment, ma’am, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, we’ve had to re­duce even manda­to­ry ex­pen­di­ture. Your gov­ern­ment bank­rupt­ed the econ­o­my, and that is why we are in the state we are in.”

In re­ply, Man­ning claimed the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion “bank­rupt­ed it­self” by can­celling the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty.

Dowlat said an ad­di­tion­al $296.1 mil­lion in re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture would be used to sta­bilise staffing via salary pay­ments and retroac­tive ad­just­ments for ed­u­ca­tors. It will al­so fund sup­port pro­grammes for 20,000 vul­ner­a­ble stu­dents, set­tle long­stand­ing ar­rears to uni­ver­si­ty staff, and meet con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions for es­sen­tial ser­vices such as jan­i­to­r­i­al work.

He said $37 mil­lion will cov­er the salaries of 6,565 sec­ondary school of­fi­cers, while the re­main­ing pay­ments will be processed in the next fis­cal year. A fur­ther $33 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for con­tract work­ers, in­clud­ing EC­CE teach­ers and as­sis­tants, and $20 mil­lion was set aside for school sup­plies and book grants.

These grants will as­sist 20,000 of the 28,844 el­i­gi­ble ap­pli­cants, in­clud­ing par­ents re­ceiv­ing pub­lic as­sis­tance, the un­em­ployed, the dis­abled, and low-in­come house­holds.