An­na-Lisa Paul

Stu­dents cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing de­grees in ac­cred­it­ed ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions will con­tin­ue to re­ceive Gov­ern­ment As­sist­ed Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (Gate) pro­gramme fund­ing for their en­tire pro­gramme of study.

How­ev­er, stu­dents who are reg­is­tered to be­gin pro­grammes this se­mes­ter will on­ly re­ceive full fund­ing for the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2016/2017, while those seek­ing en­try in 2017/2018 and be­yond will have to un­der­go means test­ing in or­der to qual­i­fy.

And for the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2017/2018 and be­yond, ter­tiary lev­el stu­dents will be re­quired to pay 25 per cent of their tu­ition fees.Med­ical stu­dents seek­ing to study at the St George's Uni­ver­si­ty and peo­ple over 50 will al­so no longer be able to ac­cess the pro­gramme.

These are on­ly a few of the ma­jor changes in­tro­duced to the Gate pro­gramme an­nounced by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing a spe­cial Cab­i­net meet­ing.

Pre­sent­ing the list of 18 rec­om­men­da­tions dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St. Clair, Gar­cia as­sured they were tak­en in the best in­ter­est of the na­tion in light of the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cri­sis.

The spe­cial Cab­i­net meet­ing pre­ced­ed the an­nu­al va­ca­tion leave of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley which be­gins to­day.

De­lib­er­at­ed on and ac­cept­ed by the Cab­i­net, Gar­cia said the de­ci­sions were ex­pect­ed to yield an im­me­di­ate sav­ings of $100 mil­lion in the first year, in­creas­ing year­ly un­til Gov­ern­ment reach­es their ex­pen­di­ture tar­get of $500 mil­lion.

Among the long-term plans for the pro­gramme is Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion to es­tab­lish a Na­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion Sav­ings Fund, which will pro­vide tax in­cen­tives to pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tions to make fund con­tri­bu­tions on be­half of the chil­dren of their em­ploy­ees, and fis­cal in­cen­tives to en­cour­age in­sur­ance com­pa­nies and cred­it unions to in­vest in the de­vel­op­ment of ed­u­ca­tion sav­ings prod­ucts.

Re­in­forc­ing Gov­ern­ment's of­fi­cial pol­i­cy change re­gard­ing the Gate pro­gramme, Gar­cia said they were com­mit­ted to re­tain­ing it but al­so en­sur­ing that "it is rel­e­vant, eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble and avail­able to all those who need it."

Un­will­ing to rule out any fu­ture re­view of the Gare pol­i­cy, Gar­cia said: "Of course, noth­ing in this world is cast in con­crete and de­pends on how things go, there might be the pos­si­bil­i­ty of changes but at present this is the of­fi­cial po­si­tion of the Gov­ern­ment."

One of the ma­jor changes an­nounced was that ef­fec­tive 2017, stu­dents whose house­hold in­come falls be­low $10,000 would be el­i­gi­ble for 100 per cent fund­ing, while stu­dents whose house­hold in­come ex­ceeds $10,000 would have to pay 25 per cent of their tu­ition fees.

Say­ing the method­ol­o­gy used to ar­rive at the $10,000 ceil­ing was in­sti­tut­ed by the Task Force Com­mit­tee who com­piled the 70-page re­port, Gar­cia said Cab­i­net agreed to in­crease the fig­ure from $9,000 so as to en­sure no one was at a dis­ad­van­tage in light of the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cri­sis.

"The re­port re­vealed that so far, with re­spect to Gate, most of the fund­ing was ac­cessed by per­sons in the mid­dle and low­er in­come brack­ets. We need to en­sure we lift that bar so that per­sons in the low­er in­come brack­et can ben­e­fit," he said.

Gar­cia said the process to be used to de­ter­mine who is el­i­gi­ble would be ad­min­is­tered by a spe­cial team from the min­istry.

While re­lief swept across the cur­rent stu­dent pop­u­la­tion, med­ical stu­dents hop­ing to en­roll at the St. George's Uni­ver­si­ty had their hopes dashed af­ter Gar­cia an­nounced that Gov­ern­ment was dis­con­tin­u­ing fund­ing new stu­dents.

Asked to ex­plain that, he said: "What we have found with re­spect to St George's Uni­ver­si­ty, the cost of fund­ing is much high­er than the cost of fund­ing at any of our re­gion­al cam­pus­es. In ad­di­tion to that, stu­dents' en­roll­ment at St George's is way be­low that of St Au­gus­tine, Cave Hill and Mona."

In­di­cat­ing that he didn't "en­vis­age" any in­crease in fees at in­di­vid­ual ter­tiary lev­el in­sti­tu­tions, Gar­cia said any such mea­sure would have to be brought to the UWI Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pose Com­mit­tee, of which he was a mem­ber.

On fund­ing for post grad­u­ate de­grees, he said ef­fec­tive 2017, fund­ing would on­ly be made avail­able to stu­dents whose pro­grammes were in align­ment with the coun­try's de­vel­op­men­tal needs but not­ed fur­ther dis­cus­sion need to take place on those needs.

He said the re­stric­tion on fund­ing to peo­ple 50 years and old­er was not meant to dis­cour­age this group from ac­cess­ing ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion, but not­ed: "We are faced with a po­si­tion where be­cause of our fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion, we have to en­sure that the Gate pro­gramme is run in an ef­fi­cient man­ner and al­so, there must be some lev­el of cut­backs, be­cause if our econ­o­my is shrink­ing, ob­vi­ous­ly every­body must make a sac­ri­fice.

"It was this view of Cab­i­net that per­sons over the age of 50 would have al­ready been em­ployed and would be in a bet­ter po­si­tion to con­tribute to their ed­u­ca­tion."

Gar­cia ad­mit­ted that the me­chan­ics were still be­ing worked out in some ar­eas, in­clud­ing de­ter­min­ing the cri­te­ria of the means test and the fi­nal de­ci­sion by the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of T&T on which in­sti­tu­tions would re­ceive the GATE as­sis­tance.

But he said he was sat­is­fied that new ini­tia­tives would erad­i­cate and dis­cour­age much of the wastage that seemed in­her­ent in the pro­gramme and as­sured ro­bust mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems would be in­tro­duced at the min­is­te­r­i­al lev­el to en­sure the pro­gramme is more ef­fec­tive.

The list of rec­om­men­da­tions in­clude:

REC­OM­MEN­DA­TIONS:

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2016 stu­dents who are at present en­rolled in var­i­ous pro­grammes will con­tin­ue to re­ceive fund­ing for the en­tire pro­gramme.

�2 Stu­dents who are reg­is­tered to be­gin pro­grammes in 2016 will be fund­ed ful­ly for the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2016/2017.

�2 Ef­fec­tive for the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2017-2018 and be­yond a means test will be used.

�2 For the aca­d­e­m­ic years 2017-2018 and be­yond, stu­dents will be re­quired to pay 25 per cent of their tu­ition fees as fol­lows:

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2017, stu­dents who house­hold in­come falls be­low $10,000 will be el­i­gi­ble for 100 per cent fund­ing. This will be de­ter­mined by means test­ing.

�2 Where the house­hold in­come is above $10,000 stu­dents will be re­quired to pay 25 per cent of their tu­ition fees.

�2 Where the house­hold in­come is above $30,000 stu­dents will be re­quired to pay 50 per cent of tu­ition fees.

�2 Ef­fec­tive from Au­gust 2017 fund­ing for post grad­u­ate de­grees will be avail­able to stu­dents whose pro­grammes are in align­ment with the coun­try's de­vel­op­men­tal needs.

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2017, on­ly in­sti­tu­tions and pro­grammes ac­cred­it­ed by ACTT will be fund­ed.

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2017, TVET pro­grammes for Lev­el III and above will be fund­ed.

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2016, stu­dents should on­ly be fund­ed for one un­der­grad­u­ate and one post­grad­u­ate pro­gramme. Con­tin­u­ing stu­dents should be al­lowed to com­plete un­der­grad­u­ate pro­grammes for which fund­ing had pre­vi­ous­ly been ap­proved.

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2016, the loan ceil­ing for stu­dents at lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions will be raised to $35,000 an­nu­al­ly, with the ceil­ing for stu­dents at re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions to re­main at $75,000 an­nu­al­ly. In the long-term, GORTT will re­view its poli­cies in re­spect of be­ing the sole guar­an­tor of loans and the sub­si­diza­tion of in­ter­est.

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2016, per­sons over the age of 50 years will no longer el­i­gi­ble for Gate fund­ing. Con­tin­u­ing stu­dents over the age of 50 en­rolled in un­der­grad­u­ate pro­grammes will be grant­ed fund­ing to com­plete their pro­grammes.

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2017, stu­dents en­rolled in non-med­ical pro­grammes at re­gion­al cam­pus­es of UWI that are of­fered at the UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, will on­ly be fund­ed to the equiv­a­lent lev­el of fund­ing at St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.

�2 Ef­fec­tive Au­gust 2016, GORTT will dis­con­tin­ue the fund­ing of new stu­dents in the med­ical pro­gramme at SGU.

�2 Ad­di­tion­al re­sources will be pro­vid­ed to FGAD to ef­fec­tive­ly man­age its in­creased re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

�2 GORTT will con­sid­er ad­di­tion­al fund­ing in­clud­ing of­fer­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Sav­ings Bonds. Arrange­ments and de­tails to be pro­vid­ed.

�2 GORTT will es­tab­lish a Na­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion Sav­ings Fund (pri­vate sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tions will al­so be en­cour­aged by tax in­cen­tives to make fund con­tri­bu­tions on be­half of the chil­dren of their em­ploy­ees or to en­gage in oth­er phil­an­thropic ini­tia­tives that build the fund.)

�2 GORTT will con­sid­er fis­cal in­cen­tives to en­cour­age in­sur­ance com­pa­nies and cred­it unions to in­vest in the de­vel­op­ment of ed­u­ca­tion sav­ings prod­ucts.