Tremaine So­ca Warn­er

Far too many na­tion­al schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ents can­not con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try when they fin­ish their stud­ies, said Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan.

She ac­knowl­edged that cer­tain ar­eas of study were not di­rect­ly rel­e­vant to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T, so it might be dif­fi­cult to find jobs iden­ti­fi­ably linked to the de­gree held by the re­turn­ing schol­ar. She al­so em­pha­sised that those who ac­cept na­tion­al schol­ar­ships have an oblig­a­tion to work in the pub­lic ser­vice when they fin­ish their stud­ies.

"The schol­ar­ship-man­age­ment process ends with place­ment of the schol­ar in­to the work­place," she said. Seep­er­sad-Bachan ad­dressed schol­ar­ship win­ners and their par­ents at a sem­i­nar at the ball­room of the Hilton Trinidad on Oc­to­ber 17 for those who were award­ed schol­ar­ships for their achieve­ments in the 2012 Cape ex­am­i­na­tions.

She said of the 515 schol­ars who were ex­pect­ed to re­port for job place­ment in 2011-2012, 39 were doc­tors, 159 teach­ers and 131 were em­ployed in oth­er cat­e­gories, mak­ing a to­tal of 329. "How­ev­er,"?she said, "through oblig­a­tory ser­vice, we are com­pelled to hire a schol­ar­ship win­ner in the pub­lic ser­vice and some­times you be­come frus­trat­ed since you are not in the field in which you grad­u­at­ed and have to serve out your term in what many may see as dead-end jobs."

She said the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion was ad­dress­ing that is­sue by de­vel­op­ing new ar­chi­tec­ture with­in the pub­lic ser­vice to in­clude var­i­ous pro­fes­sion­al spe­cial­i­sa­tions and in­creas­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of suit­able em­ploy­ment for re­turn­ing schol­ars. She said the As­so­ciate Pro­fes­sion­al Pro­gramme was de­signed to help re­turn­ing schol­ars put the knowl­edge and skills ac­quired at uni­ver­si­ty in­to use in the work­place.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan said her min­istry is re­view­ing the pol­i­cy frame­work con­cern­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­duc­ing the length of oblig­a­tory ser­vice as well as pos­si­ble de­fer­ral. Those who do not wish to car­ry out the oblig­a­tory ser­vice are ex­pect­ed to pay back the cost of their stud­ies to the Gov­ern­ment.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan con­grat­u­lat­ed the re­cip­i­ents on their suc­cess and ad­vised them to be aware of the ma­tu­ri­ty that uni­ver­si­ty life would en­tail. A for­mer lec­tur­er in the Fac­ul­ty of En­gi­neer­ing at UWI, she said that ex­pe­ri­ence had made her aware of the self-suf­fi­cien­cy and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty a new ter­tiary-lev­el stu­dent must have.