Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge says the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing (Mi­LAT) Pro­gramme has not been closed but tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed as the Gov­ern­ment re­views its fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty.

His state­ment comes amid mount­ing crit­i­cism that the move could leave vul­ner­a­ble young men with­out a crit­i­cal sup­port sys­tem.

The pro­gramme’s sus­pen­sion has sparked con­cern over the fu­ture of al­most 200 trainees and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 staff mem­bers, with re­ports that fa­cil­i­ta­tors have re­ceived ter­mi­na­tion no­tices.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Sturge in­sist­ed the pro­gramme re­mained un­der re­view.

“The pro­gramme has not been shut down but tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed,” he said.

Sturge said the Gov­ern­ment was en­gaged in dis­cus­sions with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force Re­serves and the Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion to de­ter­mine the pro­gramme’s fu­ture.

“We are in on­go­ing dis­cus­sions with TTDF Re­serves as well as Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion with a view to re­struc­tur­ing the pro­gramme as it is not eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able in its present form.”

He said the Gov­ern­ment hoped to com­plete the re­struc­tur­ing quick­ly.

“We hope to re­struc­ture in the short­est pos­si­ble time so as to fa­cil­i­tate the re­main­ing Form 4 co­hort.”

Asked what the re­struc­tur­ing would in­volve, in­clud­ing whether there would be a small­er in­take, few­er teach­ers, how soon the pro­gramme would re­sume, and whether it would con­tin­ue un­der the Mi­LAT name, Sturge de­clined to pro­vide specifics.

“All of these ques­tions will be an­swered clos­er to the end of Ju­ly,” he said.

He was al­so asked what hap­pens in the in­ter­im to the stu­dents who took up res­i­dence at the fa­cil­i­ty’s Mau­si­ca Road com­pound, but he did not re­spond.

Sturge, how­ev­er, re­ject­ed Op­po­si­tion claims that sus­pend­ing the pro­gramme would con­tribute to ris­ing crime.

“The nar­ra­tive that clo­sure of the pro­gramme may lead to an in­crease in crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty is a trade­mark scare tac­tic of the Op­po­si­tion,” he said.

He ar­gued that de­spite Mi­LAT’s ex­is­tence, T&T ex­pe­ri­enced record lev­els of vi­o­lent crime over the past decade.

“This pro­gramme has been in place for some time now, yet we saw un­prece­dent­ed in­creas­es in vi­o­lent crime, par­tic­u­lar­ly record mur­der rates in the last 10 years. We un­der­stand the val­ue of such pro­grammes, but we do not sub­scribe to the hype cre­at­ed by the Op­po­si­tion.”

Es­tab­lished in 2007, Mi­LAT is a res­i­den­tial so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­gramme de­signed for at-risk youth aged 16 to 20. Op­er­at­ing in a struc­tured, qua­si-mil­i­tary en­vi­ron­ment, it com­bines be­hav­iour­al de­vel­op­ment with aca­d­e­m­ic in­struc­tion, prepar­ing par­tic­i­pants for Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­am­i­na­tions and vo­ca­tion­al train­ing.

The pro­gramme re­ceived a bud­get al­lo­ca­tion of $27.4 mil­lion in the 2024/2025 fis­cal year. That al­lo­ca­tion fell to $18.7 mil­lion in the 2025/2026 Es­ti­mates of Ex­pen­di­ture.

For­mer Tech­ni­cal Co­or­di­na­tor at the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, Kobe Sandy, warned that the sus­pen­sion was al­ready af­fect­ing trainees.

He said more than 100 Lev­el One trainees who had been prepar­ing to sit CSEC ex­am­i­na­tions next year had been sent home fol­low­ing the ter­mi­na­tion of staff con­tracts.

Sandy said many of the young men would now be forced back in­to the dif­fi­cult en­vi­ron­ments from which they had sought refuge through the pro­gramme, plac­ing years of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, ed­u­ca­tion and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment at risk.

For­mer Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings al­so crit­i­cised the de­ci­sion, de­scrib­ing it as part of what he called a broad­er dis­man­tling of youth de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives.

He said Mi­LAT had helped many young men who en­tered the pro­gramme with­out aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions to leave with five or six CSEC pass­es, ar­gu­ing it ad­dressed one of the root caus­es of crime by tar­get­ing young peo­ple who were nei­ther em­ployed nor en­gaged in ed­u­ca­tion or train­ing.

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Chris­t­ian Birch­wood al­so crit­i­cised the sus­pen­sion, say­ing Mi­LAT had pro­vid­ed at-risk youth with a path­way in­to skilled em­ploy­ment.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that gov­ern­ments were en­ti­tled to pur­sue dif­fer­ent pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties, Birch­wood ques­tioned what al­ter­na­tive would re­place the pro­gramme.

He warned that re­mov­ing such ini­tia­tives with­out a tran­si­tion­al plan could leave vul­ner­a­ble young peo­ple with few­er op­por­tu­ni­ties and ul­ti­mate­ly con­tribute to high­er lev­els of youth un­em­ploy­ment and crim­i­nal­i­ty.