Carisa Lee

Ed­u­ca­tion has once again re­ceived the high­est al­lo­ca­tion in the na­tion­al Bud­get, a $7.453 bil­lion al­lot­ment for the 2022/2023 fis­cal year.

But while a com­plete break­down will be fleshed out in the com­ing weeks dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate, $50 mil­lion of the al­lo­ca­tion will go to as­sist stu­dents strug­gling aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly.

The mon­ey is set to ad­dress the learn­ing loss caused by the clo­sures of phys­i­cal school in the last two years be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“A struc­tured re­me­di­al ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme to as­sist those stu­dents who have fall­en be­hind be­cause of COVID-19, to re­cov­er and catch up with their learn­ing,” Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert said dur­ing his Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion yes­ter­day in Par­lia­ment.

Im­bert said the Gov­ern­ment was con­cerned about these stu­dents, as the sta­tis­tics from this year’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tion was a clear re­duc­tion in achieve­ment.

Over 9,000 stu­dents scored less than 50 per cent in this year’s ex­ams but were still en­rolled in sec­ondary school.

A Va­ca­tion Re­vi­sion Pro­gramme, at the cost of $10 mil­lion, was es­tab­lished to as­sist these stu­dents dur­ing the Ju­ly-Au­gust va­ca­tion but was poor­ly at­tend­ed, with less than 3,000 stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing.

“I am deeply con­cerned about the less than ad­e­quate par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pro­gramme…We are tak­ing steps to ad­dress this chal­lenge to en­sure that aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance re­turns to pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els,” Im­bert said.

Com­ment­ing on this ini­tia­tive, T&T Sec­ondary Schools Par­ent Sup­port Group pres­i­dent Rachiel Ram­samooj said while the al­lo­ca­tion sounds good, more in­for­ma­tion is need­ed.

“How is this pro­gramme go­ing to be done, on an af­ter­noon, dur­ing school times, va­ca­tion time, week­end?” she asked.

Ram­samooj al­so want­ed to know if the pro­gramme will on­ly fo­cus on the stu­dents who did the SEA ex­ams, as she said oth­er stu­dents are strug­gling in both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school.

“The sta­t­ics are glar­ing, this is not some­thing that we can just shove un­der the car­pet and ig­nore be­cause it is there and it’s go­ing to haunt us,” she said.

She said the va­ca­tion pro­gramme cost Gov­ern­ment $10 mil­lion for less than two months and want­ed to know how the $50 mil­lion will be spent in the next fis­cal year.

“It looks okay on pa­per but you have to get those stu­dents who re­al­ly need it to come and get it,” she said, not­ing all stu­dents across the board have been af­fect­ed and there are de­vel­op­men­tal de­lays in stu­dents from first year to sec­ondary school.

“It has been over­whelm­ing for them and has put them at a dis­ad­van­tage, these stu­dents did every­thing on­line.”

Al­so, to ad­dress the learn­ing loss, the stu­dents who scored less than 50 per cent but were en­rolled in­to sec­ondary school will have to sit a Low­er Sec­ondary Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion when they get to Form Two.

Al­so, 7,000 lap­tops were dis­trib­uted to means-test­ed stu­dents and teach­ers.

Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment (CEBM) CEO and As­so­ci­a­tion of De­nom­i­na­tion­al Boards of Ed­u­ca­tion (ADBE) head Sharon Man­groo al­so said the $50 mil­lion for the re­me­di­al class­es was not much, but said it was re­as­sur­ing that mon­ey was set aside specif­i­cal­ly for the stu­dents neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by COVID-19 “who were away from school and in some cas­es away from class­es be­cause they could not get on to on­line class­es.”

Man­groo said the CEBM and ADBE looks for­ward to work­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and con­tribut­ing to the de­vel­op­ment of the re­me­di­al pro­gramme.

An­oth­er ma­jor an­nounce­ment for Ed­u­ca­tion in the Bud­get was the re­vi­sion of no more than one pro­gramme at the un­der­grad­u­ate lev­el pol­i­cy for Gov­ern­ment As­sist­ed Tu­ition Ex­pens­es Pro­gramme (GATE) stu­dents.

Im­bert said the im­ple­men­ta­tion of this new rule will al­low stu­dents in good stand­ing en­rolled in in­sti­tu­tions and pro­grammes ac­cred­it­ed by the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go to qual­i­fy for GATE if they have com­plet­ed an ini­tial pro­gramme of study such as a diplo­ma or as­so­ciate de­gree or the N1 lev­el at UWI and wish to up­grade to a bach­e­lor’s de­gree.”

Stu­dents pur­su­ing Tech­ni­cal and Vo­ca­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion Train­ing (TVET) pro­grammes who have al­ready ac­cessed GATE for low­er lev­el TVET qual­i­fi­ca­tions will now qual­i­fy for GATE for lev­el 4 and lev­el 5 pro­grammes that lead to an ad­vanced diplo­ma or bach­e­lor’s de­gree.

UWI Stu­dent Guild pres­i­dent Kobe Sandy said this was a step in the right di­rec­tion.

“I ap­plaud the Gov­ern­ment for keep­ing this con­sid­er­a­tion,” he said.

Sandy told Guardian Me­dia that in 2020 when the pro­gramme was ad­just­ed, he and his pre­de­ces­sor had ap­pealed to Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly to re­con­sid­er it.

“Our jus­ti­fi­ca­tion was that it would put many stu­dents at a dis­ad­van­tage in ac­cess­ing high­er ed­u­ca­tion,” Sandy said.