While the recent proposed changes to Gate have been generally welcomed, I refer specifically to the intended provision which reads "Effective 2017, funding for postgraduate degrees will be available to students whose programmes are in alignment with the country's developmental needs."
As per the National Development Human Resource Needs of T&T document, our government seems to have misguided opinions on the significance of liberal arts to the development of a country.
It seems our Third World status is perpetual as our country follows an elitist model of education based on a neo-capitalist paradigm as it regards the hierarchy of certain programmes in relation to others.
Should it not follow that critical thinking skills be crucial to a country's intellectual development? It is discriminatory in the least that other programmes should be privileged ahead of programmes such as History, English Literature, Gender Studies, and Linguistics.
Students of these disciplines need to have equal access as those in the physical and life sciences. Any developed country relies on a balance, this is what sets it apart from the developing nations; a fact our leaders do not seem to grasp.
Jarrel De Matas,
Diego Martin
UWI Postgraduate student