Cab­i­net has ap­proved the trans­fer of the nurs­ing ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes, cur­rent­ly of­fered by the Nurs­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Unit (NEU) of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) to the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts Trinidad and To­ba­go (COSTAATT).

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter, Dr. Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, has in­di­cat­ed that there will a smooth han­dover.

“The trans­fer and dis­es­tab­lish­ment of the NEU will be grad­ual to en­sure no dis­rup­tion in the de­liv­ery of cours­es cur­rent­ly be­ing de­liv­ered by NEU, and the ef­fi­cient trans­fer of stu­dents records to COSTAATT. This is our pri­or­i­ty,” the ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter stat­ed in a news re­lease.

The ed­u­ca­tion min­istry re­ports that a tran­si­tion team was es­tab­lished fol­low­ing two meet­ings held on Fri­day (Jan­u­ary 26, 2024)—the first with the NEU Man­ag­er and Prin­ci­pals; and the sec­ond with COSTAATT, to up­date on the Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion and dis­cuss a tran­si­tion plan.

“The fo­cus of the tran­si­tion team will be the wel­fare of the stu­dents cur­rent­ly en­rolled at the NEU, en­sur­ing min­i­mal dis­rup­tion in their ed­u­ca­tion path­way,” the min­istry’s re­lease said. “In ad­di­tion, they will make rec­om­men­da­tions for all hu­man re­source mat­ters, and the ra­tio­nal­iza­tion and/or har­mo­niza­tion of cours­es across both in­sti­tu­tions.”

It added: “The prin­ci­pals of the NEU have com­mit­ted to meet with all stu­dents to pro­vide fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tions and de­tails about this tran­si­tion process.”

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary (Ag) Si­mone Williams will chair the tran­si­tion team, which will com­prise rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, the Nurs­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Unit (NEU) of the (MoE) and the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts Trinidad and To­ba­go (COSTAATT).