Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher's As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) have ex­pressed their sat­is­fac­tion with Wednes­day's bud­get. How­ev­er, the groups said there should have been more de­tails about the al­lo­ca­tion of the $8.325 bil­lion to the ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing sec­tors. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, TTUTA's pres­i­dent Rous­tan Job said the as­so­ci­a­tion was anx­ious to learn more about the de­tails and the "break­down" of the funds al­lo­cat­ed to ed­u­ca­tion.

Job said: "Ed­u­ca­tion is the dri­ver of any na­tion and any Gov­ern­ment that would recog­nise its im­por­tance and see it as an in­vest­ment is def­i­nite­ly on the right track." He said it was im­por­tant for Gov­ern­ment to tack­le the is­sue of il­lit­er­a­cy "be­cause it is be­com­ing a se­ri­ous prob­lem in Trinidad and To­ba­go." Job said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an had al­layed the fears of those who were con­cerned about the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (GATE) pro­gramme. Dur­ing his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Dook­er­an as­sured the pro­gramme would be con­tin­ued and ex­pand­ed.

Job said: "It is in­deed en­cour­ag­ing they have de­cid­ed to in­clude vo­ca­tion­al train­ing in the GATE pro­gramme. It is laud­able." NPTA pres­i­dent Zena Ra­matali said she was hop­ing to see schools ful­ly equipped with re­sources, such as pho­to­copy­ing ma­chines, com­put­er labs and "well-stocked li­braries." She said: "We need our teach­ers to be in an en­vi­ron­ment that is con­ducive to learn­ing and teach­ing." Ra­matali added she had heard "a large chunk" of the sum was al­lo­cat­ed for school re­pairs and con­tin­u­a­tion of con­struc­tion of Ear­ly Child­hood Care Cen­tres which be­gan un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion. "We will like to know how the mon­ey will be al­lo­cat­ed and hope funds will be de­liv­ered in a time­ly fash­ion," she said.

Dook­er­an said Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to es­tab­lish a chil­dren's ed­u­ca­tion­al plan but did not out­line how it would be done. There were ru­mours that Gov­ern­ment would shut down the On-The-Job Train­ing pro­gramme but Dook­er­an al­so as­sured it would be re­struc­tured to ex­pand to pri­vate sec­tor place­ment. Dook­er­an added that pro­grammes un­der the Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion, such as the Mul­ti-Sec­tor Skills Train­ing Pro­grammes and the Help­ing Youth Pre­pare for Em­ploy­ment, would be re-eval­u­at­ed to en­sure their ob­jec­tives were achieved.