COSTATT, UWI and UTT have signed agree­ments with TATT for the pro­vi­sion of bur­saries to se­lect­ed stu­dents amount­ing to $TT$240,000.00 over two aca­d­e­m­ic years. Un­der the agree­ment, TATT will pro­vide bur­saries to four stu­dents pur­su­ing In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­o­gy-re­lat­ed de­gree pro­grammes, at each of the three ter­tiary lev­el in­sti­tu­tions. 

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from TATT:

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Col­lege of Sci­ence Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of Trinidad and To­ba­go (COSTAATT), The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, this morn­ing signed agree­ments with the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TATT) for pro­vi­sion of bur­saries to se­lect­ed stu­dents amount­ing to $TT$240,000.00 over two aca­d­e­m­ic years.

Un­der the agree­ment, TATT will pro­vide bur­saries to four stu­dents pur­su­ing In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­o­gy re­lat­ed de­gree pro­grammes, at each of the three ter­tiary lev­el in­sti­tu­tions. The se­lect­ed stu­dents will each be grant­ed $10,000.00 by TATT based on their per­for­mance dur­ing the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 aca­d­e­m­ic years and fi­nan­cial sta­tus, in ac­cor­dance with the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es Pro­gramme.

Dr. Kim Mal­lalieu, Deputy Chair­man of the Board of TATT who de­liv­ered re­marks at the cer­e­mo­ny de­scribed the oc­ca­sion as mo­men­tous “as it marks the start of a pro­gres­sive part­ner­ship be­tween the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and lo­cal state ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions, that is cer­tain to add fil­lip to the coun­try’s fu­ture ICT hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty.

She said, “hu­mans are be­hind tech­nol­o­gy de­vel­op­ment and most im­por­tant­ly it is hu­mans who will use the tech­nolo­gies”. It is in this vein, she ad­vised, the Board TATT agreed to pro­vide the bur­saries as tan­gi­ble sup­port for se­lect­ed stu­dents pur­su­ing un­der­grad­u­ate ICT re­lat­ed stud­ies in Trinidad and To­ba­go with a view to ex­pand­ing and en­cour­ag­ing the de­vel­op­ment of this coun­try’s cadre of ICT pro­fes­sion­als Dr. Mal­lalieu told the au­di­ence.
TATT’s CEO, Mrs. Cyn­thia Red­dock Downes, who al­so ad­dressed the au­di­ence, in­formed the au­di­ence that to­day, Ju­ly 1st TATT cel­e­brates its 18th an­niver­sary mak­ing eigh­teen years of dili­gent­ly pur­su­ing the de­vel­op­ment of this coun­try’s telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and broad­cast­ing sec­tors.

Mrs Downes stat­ed, since its es­tab­lish­ment in 2004 TATT was “al­ways mind­ful of the fact that de­vel­op­ment of the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and broad­cast­ing sec­tor re­quired the de­vel­op­ment of our peo­ple to uti­lize the tech­nolo­gies in their per­son­al and cor­po­rate lives”.
She al­so point­ed out that with­in the last three years strength­en­ing the hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty with­in this coun­try’s ICT sec­tor ac­cel­er­at­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pur­suit of build­ing and main­tain­ing an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.

Mr. Richard Madray, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion was in at­ten­dance, as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of COSTAATT, The UWI and UTT. The uni­ver­si­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives in their ad­dress­es ex­pressed grat­i­tude to TATT for the ini­tia­tive which they all high­light­ed will sig­nif­i­cant­ly as­sist de­serv­ing stu­dents to suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete their pro­grammes of study.

Speak­ing on be­half of COSTAATT was Dr He­len Cum­ber­batch, Vice Pres­i­dent, Stu­dent Af­fairs; Pro­fes­sor In­dar Ram­nar­ine, Deputy Prin­ci­pal spoke on be­half of The UWI. Pro­fes­sor Fes­tus Ad­do-Yobo, Vice Pres­i­dent Re­search, Aca­d­e­m­ic Af­fairs spoke on be­half of UTT.