What if I told you that without even looking at the report submitted by the Task Force on Gate that was commissioned to review it, that there was a way we can reduce government contributions without affecting the students who were pursuing tertiary level education?
What if I told you that not only could this solution lower government spending but also increase the number of individuals who attained higher learning certification at the same time?
And what if I told you that this recommendation has been made ad nauseam by educational professionals for years but has been ignored because of the stigma attached to it?
The truth of the matter is that a society–any society–only requires a small fraction of academics to plan and develop strategies, but a larger number of skilled individuals to implement them. However, since the introduction of the Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses programme, there has been greater accessibility to university degree by citizens of this country which has created its own unique problem.
Similar to the USA, where the ease at which young people are able to access university financing has created a student debt crisis and an increased number of Bachelor of Arts accredited fast-food employees, so too in our country have we created a system that yields an excess number university graduates that our employment pool does not demand.
As such, this has led to graduates either accepting jobs that they're overqualified for, or to employers hiring them at below-par salaries. This has also led to the brain drain when those who can afford it migrate as they become aware of the limited opportunities available to them in this country after they have graduated.
The solution therefore would be to find a way to reduce the number of people who enrol for degree programmes, and instead develop institutions that train people to become skilled in different fields, similar to Costaatt.
To achieve this, The University of T&T would also have to be downgraded to a vocational institute, which would not be difficult since it has never acquired international accreditation, and has in the past been described as a diploma mill, which has only added to the problem at hand.
Following this the Government could then revert to the old system of funding university students through national scholarships and allow Gate to finance the tuition of these technical programmes, which cost significantly less than degree programmes. As stated earlier, not only would this reduce government spending, but it would also regulate the employment pool and decrease the unemployment rate in our country.
As mentioned before, however, there is a stigma attached to this, as no government is willing to tell the electorate that there are people better suited to academia than others, even though when you look at the way our society is built, it is evident that we cannot sustain a population of academics.
Ravi Maharaj