Khara Per­sad

The Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed $6.5 mil­lion to­ward the ed­u­ca­tion of 50 em­ploy­ees from the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.They had been study­ing for an as­so­ciate de­gree in en­vi­ron­men­tal health at the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T&T (Costaatt).The stu­dents, who com­prised work­ers from en­try-lev­el po­si­tions with­in the min­istry, be­gan the two-year pro­gramme on June 3, with hopes of be­com­ing health in­spec­tors at the end of their stud­ies.

This in­vest­ment was nec­es­sary for build­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the min­istry, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan. He said the min­istry was "short on hav­ing the kind of per­son­nel to deal ef­fec­tive­ly with pub­lic health is­sues."At a schol­ar­ship award cer­e­mo­ny at the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Ram­bachan said the pro­gramme was an im­por­tant ad­di­tion to the min­istry's work and to its fu­ture de­vel­op­ment.

"This pro­gramme comes in the midst of a re­form ex­er­cise that has been un­der­tak­en by the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment in terms of the mod­erni­sa­tion and trans­for­ma­tion of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment," he said."We recog­nised that we were short, that there was a short­fall in terms of hu­man ca­pac­i­ty."The to­tal cost for the two years–$6.5 mil­lion–in­clud­ed tu­ition fees ($22,500 per per­son), a book grant ($1,000), and the new stu­dents' month­ly salaries while away from work.

Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Fazal Karim, who al­so spoke at the func­tion, said: "They (stu­dents) have leave of ab­sence, and so that they're away from work and they'll be paid their salaries as well."He said the prospec­tive health in­spec­tors would al­so have se­cured jobs up­on com­ple­tion of the Gate-ap­proved pro­gramme, and a new ca­reer path.