Dis­abil­i­ty has been iden­ti­fied as a field of study crit­i­cal to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and is one of five ar­eas in which Cab­i­net has ap­proved schol­ar­ship pro­grammes. A re­lease from the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion said Cab­i­net has ap­proved an In­ter­im Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Hu­man Re­source Needs List which has iden­ti­fied pri­or­i­ty ar­eas of study crit­i­cal to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Cab­i­net agreed to the of­fer of schol­ar­ships for ad­vanced stud­ies in the ar­eas of dis­abil­i­ty, al­lied health, so­cial work and re­lat­ed so­cial sci­ence, li­brary and in­for­ma­tion sci­ence and de­vel­op­ment needs. "Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Cab­i­net ac­cept­ed the of­fer to nom­i­nate cit­i­zens of T&T for schol­ar­ships of­fered by the gov­ern­ments of Colom­bia, Malaysia, Mex­i­co, New Zealand, Turkey and the Unit­ed King­dom," the re­lease said.

All schol­ar­ships of­fered by or through the Gov­ern­ment are man­aged by the Schol­ar­ships and Ad­vanced Train­ing Di­vi­sion in the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry. Schol­ar­ships en­able cit­i­zens to ac­quire skills and train­ing in ar­eas that are crit­i­cal to the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try and are award­ed on a com­pet­i­tive ba­sis, the re­lease said.

The of­fer of the schol­ar­ships and the In­ter­im Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Hu­man Re­source Needs List will be pub­lished short­ly on the Web site www.schol­ar­ships.gov.tt.