Chairman of the National Issues Committee of the T&T Association of Retired Persons Ltd (TTARP) Cecil Paul says the Government must state its justifications to stop funding tertiary education for students 50 and over.
Paul said, “They also need to say how many people are in the age group of 50 and over who access the programme. We are going to press them for that because it is discrimination.”
He said, however, TTARP was okay with the means testing.
So far, the Government has not said how many people were in the category of 50-plus accessing Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses (Gate) funding or likely to be affected from next year.
In an interview on Friday, Paul said the category most likely to be adversely affected was those who were “doing it” for promotion to get a better pension. He said many mature students also enrolled in programmes because of their commitment to social or volunteer work.
“They are the ones who want to do a two-year diploma course to help in the community and so on. It would have an impact. I don’t know the extent. I don’t have numbers, so I can’t say.”
Paul said there were many jobs in the public service which required specific qualifications like MBAs.
He said if Government was scrapping the funding to students 50 and over, “then let us know how many are affected.”
“Don’t just take a decision and don’t explain it to the public.”
TTARP has close to 40,000 members.
In a radio interview on Friday, Education Minister Anthony Garcia said people already enrolled in programmes would continue to receive funding, while those who applied and have been accepted this academic year would receive funding for the 2016/2017 year.
Costaatt pres: We will step up to assist students 50 and over
President of the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of T&T (Costaatt) Dr Gillian Paul said of the 8,000 or so student population, close to 1,300 were over the age of 50.
“It would be a significant portion because we really support a lot of adult students coming back to college for the second time,” Paul said.
Education Minister Anthony Garcia, in justifying the change, said it was felt that mature students would have been gainfully employed for a number of years and that would have afforded them the opportunity to save for their education.
But Paul said, there were scenarios of people 50 and over who were working for most of their lives and who had no possibility without Costaatt of achieving a qualification that would earn them a better salary.
She said it was important to note that the salary difference between someone with CXC passes and one with an associate degree was up to $3,000 to $4,000 a month.
“So that could be a significant impact on a household that does not have anybody who has any tertiary level studies and in that case, the college will step up and support those 50 and over who fall into that category,” Paul said.
She said the college understood that the Government had to make decisions and “I have no issue with that.”
Paul added that the college would try to find an internal mechanism to support the profile of the student it normally supported.
“That’s the real issue for us.”
She said, “We are going to look at each individual story and try to understand whether this is somebody who really worked or is working...potentially earning sufficiently to be able to manage on their own or to benefit from whatever the means test brings or is this somebody who is really independent of the means test.”
Karim: Govt’s action deceitful
Former minister of tertiary education and skills training Fazal Karim said the Government has received value for the billions spent on the programme since 2004.
However, in an interview with the Sunday Guardian, he described last week’s announcement to stop funding mature students by the Government as “discriminatory and deceitful.”
In a column in today’s paper titled The Gate Betrayal (See Page A20), Karim said the removal of Gate funding to mature students will discourage continuing education and adult education.
T&T could boast of a highly educated workforce which could attract greater investment, Karim said. He questioned, “Are our programmes aligned to industry needs?”
Karim added, “T&T required highly skilled workers for areas such as agriculture, finance, technology, manufacturing, and engineering. The focus should be on building skills and harnessing those skills for new business growth.”
Karim said there was a critical need for graduates to become more entrepreneurial, therefore entrepreneurship should be added to the curriculum.
“Not everyone will become entrepreneurs but the entrepreneurial mindset needs to be developed,” he said.