The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has out­lined the ex­pand­ed pol­i­cy for the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition (GATE), as an­nounced in Mon­day's Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

The fol­low­ing ex­plains who can now al­so ben­e­fit from it;

"The Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition (GATE) Pro­gramme has been ex­pand­ed to fa­cil­i­tate pro­gres­sive ma­tric­u­la­tion to a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree and Tech­ni­cal Vo­ca­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing (TVET) Pro­gramme Lev­el four and above.

With im­me­di­ate ef­fect, stu­dents en­rolled in in­sti­tu­tions and pro­grammes ac­cred­it­ed by the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ACTT) will be fund­ed as fol­lows:

for one (1) non-ter­mi­nal pro­gramme and One (1) Bach­e­lor’s De­gree or

for one (1) Diplo­ma and One (1) Bach­e­lor’s De­gree or

for one (1) Ad­vanced Diplo­ma and One (1) Bach­e­lor’s De­gree or

for one (1) As­so­ciate De­gree and One (1) Bach­e­lor’s De­gree or

or one (1) Cer­tifi­cate Pro­gramme and One (1) Bach­e­lor’s De­gree;

As it re­lates to TVET, the GATE pro­gramme will now al­low for:

one TVET lev­el three (3) pro­gramme or equiv­a­lent as Diplo­ma and one TVET

lev­el four (4) pro­gramme equiv­a­lent as Ad­vanced Diplo­ma

one TVET lev­el four (4) pro­gramme equiv­a­lent as Ad­vanced Diplo­ma and one TVET lev­el five (5) pro­gramme equiv­a­lent as a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree

one TVET lev­el three (3) pro­gramme equiv­a­lent as Diplo­ma and one TVET

lev­el five (5) pro­gramme equiv­a­lent as a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree.

It should be not­ed that:

Stu­dents should reg­is­ter for the Bac­calau­re­ate cer­ti­fi­ca­tion or TVET equiv­a­lent with­in two (2) years of com­ple­tion of the ini­tial course of study.

The Bac­calau­re­ate course of study should be aligned to the ar­eas iden­ti­fied on the In­ter­im De­vel­op­ment List, as well as ar­eas as­so­ci­at­ed with main­tain­ing the cadre of pro­fes­sion­als in the ar­eas of Med­i­cine, En­gi­neer­ing, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, Agri­cul­ture, Law, Psy­chol­o­gy, So­cial Work, the Cre­ative Sec­tor and Sports.

Cit­i­zens un­der the age of 50, al­ready in pos­ses­sion of qual­i­fi­ca­tions which al­low them to ma­tric­u­late to a Bac­calau­re­ate pro­gram or its TVET equiv­a­lent, must reg­is­ter by Sep­tem­ber 2024 to be el­i­gi­ble for GATE fund­ing."