Tabaquite Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Ani­ta Haynes has chas­tised the Gov­ern­ment for re­vers­ing its own pol­i­cy on GATE (Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es Pro­gramme) and an­nounc­ing it as a new plan.

In his 2023 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said the Gov­ern­ment had ad­just­ed the cri­te­ria for ac­cess­ing GATE to per­mit stu­dents in good stand­ing, en­rolled in in­sti­tu­tions and pro­grammes ac­cred­it­ed by the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of T&T, to qual­i­fy for GATE if they have com­plet­ed an ini­tial pro­gramme of stud­ies such as a diplo­ma, as­so­ciate de­gree or the N1 lev­el at UWI, and wish to up­grade to a bach­e­lor’s de­gree.

How­ev­er, in her con­tri­bu­tion to the Bud­get de­bate yes­ter­day, MP Haynes said it was the same Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment that im­posed the re­stric­tions on ter­tiary stu­dents in 2020.

“Do you know when those changes hap­pened to GATE Mr Deputy Speak­er? Ear­ly af­ter win­ning the elec­tion of 2020, this Gov­ern­ment, this PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, em­barked on the sys­tem­at­ic clo­sure of the very GATE they are now claim­ing to open,” she said.

Haynes ex­plained that the Gov­ern­ment amend­ed GATE to re­strict fund­ing to no more than one pro­gramme at the un­der­grad­u­ate lev­el.

She said they were now claim­ing to have the so­lu­tion to a prob­lem that they had cre­at­ed.

“I think the mes­sag­ing here is ob­scene at this point, com­ing from the Gov­ern­ment,” she said.

She de­scribed the Gov­ern­ment as short-sight­ed for re­vers­ing a de­ci­sion it made on­ly in 2020.

“I am lis­ten­ing and I am ap­palled by the lev­el of shame­less­ness that you can come here with,” she added.

In her con­tri­bu­tion be­fore Haynes, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly urged young peo­ple to take ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ties be­ing pro­vid­ed in ed­u­ca­tion in this coun­try.

“Do not waste it, break the cy­cle,” she said.

Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly told stu­dents that re­gard­less of what is­sues the world and T&T are fac­ing at this time, ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties are still there for them.

“Ed­u­ca­tion may be free in Trinidad and To­ba­go but it isn’t cheap,” she said

The min­is­ter ex­plained that fund­ing is giv­en to MIC, Costaatt, UTT, Ytepp and UWI and in this bud­get, $1.3 bil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed to these in­sti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing.

She added that $178 mil­lion had al­so been al­lo­cat­ed for 100 schol­ar­ships for CAPE stu­dents want­i­ng to pur­sue ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion.

“Up to 450 mil­lion will be spent on GATE this fis­cal year, 400 al­ready al­lo­cat­ed and more will be sup­plied in the midterm as nec­es­sary,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so re­it­er­at­ed the plans to keep the Va­ca­tion Re­vi­sion Pro­gramme for a fur­ther five years and spoke about the ini­tia­tive with the po­lice to help re­duce school vi­o­lence, re­veal­ing that $150 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed to con­duct cru­cial re­pairs to schools.