Forgive me for harping on the present PNM government's plan for reforming the GATE programme. We were told that reform of this programme was an inescapable reality because of the country's present financial predicament.
The Hon Minister, however, reassured denizens of the high priority that education occupies among the PNM's hierarchy of needs.
Mr Garcia envisions a "savings" of TT$200m–on the TT$750m allocated annually–after these changes come to fruition. It goes without saying that if our leaders' thinking is that deliberately stunting growth in education is a worthy sacrifice, he has a duty to convince citizens of this wisdom.
The very least he can do is to disclose what greater good he intends to achieve with the TT$200 million he plans to save.
Education represents a public "good." A reduction in government spending in providing this good involves sacrifice.
The notion of sacrifice implies exchange–one willingly gives up that which is "good"' thereby embracing short-term deprivation, to gain something better in the long term.
Sacrifice certainly does not mean senseless self-deprivation. Education and the empowerment it brings are vitally important contributors to state capacity.
A leader would have to be patently insane to think that it is possible to deprive an entire generation of education when "money is low" and in thirty years when the coffers are full once more, to restart it and the state would "catch up" and all would be well.
That type of thinking has been the cause of many a failed state.
We all understand the Ministry's desire to penalise those who have abused the system.
Government's focus on igniting the economy has taken second place to its obsession with placing political stooges on the board of every state enterprise, the police, the military, the Central Bank, etc.
It has failed to consider that this unnecessary "interruption" can and has caused the loss of more than 12,000 jobs.
That done, they then tell those aged 50 years and over that they will not be beneficiaries of state assistance in re-tooling themselves or gaining new skills.
Is that not adding insult to the injury that its inept politicisation of the public service has caused?
Steve Smith
Via email