AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

The gov­ern­ment has cut $45 mil­lion from the On the Job (OJT) Train­ing Pro­gramme, but the Fi­nance Min­is­ter as­sures that more sus­tain­able jobs are com­ing.

Dur­ing an analy­sis of ex­pen­di­ture for the re-es­tab­lished Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing, St Ann’s East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ques­tioned why the pro­gramme faced a cut.

“I no­tice that there is a $45 mil­lion de­crease in 2026 al­lo­ca­tion, which is $275 mil­lion. Is this the line item that is used to pay the ac­tu­al OJT trainees? So with a re­duc­tion of $45 mil­lion, will the same num­ber of trainees be em­ployed as in the pre­vi­ous year?” she asked Min­is­ter Prakash Per­sad.

Per­sad re­spond­ed, “Well, there are dif­fer­ent lev­els of trainees. There are five lev­els and they are paid at dif­fer­ent amounts, vary­ing from CXC peo­ple to de­gree peo­ple. So you can have the same amount or more with the same quan­tum.”

How­ev­er, the for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter was not sat­is­fied with the re­sponse.

“So there's an in­ten­tion to spend $45 mil­lion less but hire the same num­ber of peo­ple, there­fore you'd be hir­ing more at the low­er lev­el?” she asked.

The Min­is­ter said he did not in­di­cate that and sought to clar­i­fy his an­swer.

“So I'm sure that the for­mer Min­is­ter, the mem­ber for St Ann's East, is aware that OJT train­ing is for a par­tic­u­lar pe­ri­od of time. And there­fore, once the time pass­es, those per­sons get out of the sys­tem and oth­ers may have come in. So that would ex­plain the re­duc­tion. Some peo­ple would have moved out hav­ing served their two-year pe­ri­od and then oth­ers may or may not have come in. So that would ex­plain the re­duc­tion,” Per­sad said.

Again, Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly sought fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion.

“Well, Min­is­ter, frankly, that does not ex­plain the re­duc­tion. What that says is that as peo­ple move out of the pro­gramme, you will not be tak­ing in as many peo­ple. So it means that there will be less op­por­tu­ni­ty for young peo­ple to be em­ployed in the OJT pro­gramme.”

Per­sad asked the Fi­nance Min­is­ter to in­ter­vene, who ex­plained that long-term em­ploy­ment will make up for any short­fall in OJT op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“Just again for your clar­i­fi­ca­tion, for sim­plic­i­ty, OJT train­ing is a tem­po­rary mea­sure. The gov­ern­ment has clear­ly an­nounced the em­ploy­ment and the fill­ing of va­can­cies at a na­tion­al lev­el. The gov­ern­ment has al­so en­gaged in a re­cruit­ment dri­ve for that pur­pose. The in­ten­tion of the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, this gov­ern­ment, is to pro­vide strong, sus­tain­able, re­li­able, well-pay­ing jobs to young peo­ple,” Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said.

The for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter asked again if few­er peo­ple would be hired un­der the OJT Pro­gramme this fi­nan­cial year; how­ev­er, Min­is­ter Per­sad re­it­er­at­ed that there are sev­er­al lev­els in the pro­gramme.

“So, it de­pends on which lev­el you are hired at. So, it doesn't mean we hire less. And how do you know right now, the low­er lev­el, there's a great de­mand for peo­ple in the schools to help with autis­tic chil­dren, etc. So, I think, you know, I think the mem­ber for St Ann's East needs to look at the de­tails.”