Former tertiary education minister Fazal Karim has made a public call to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to bring back the Ministry of Tertiary Education and Skills Training so that adequate focus will be placed on higher education and vocational training.
According to Karim, Education Minister Anthony Garcia, who is responsible for tertiary education, focuses 99 per cent of his time on one part of his mandate and it is not tertiary education.
Karim's call follows reports of a memo sent to the university's staff on Wednesday night by UTT chairman of the Board of Governors, Prof Kenneth Julien.
The memo said there will be significant job cuts at both managerial and academics levels effective November 10 due to severe financial constraints over the past year, which worsened with the further 11 per cent decrease in UTT’s 2017/2018 recurrent allocation to $200 million.
He said if any campus of the University of T&T (UTT) is closed down, it will not only lead to job cuts but reduced opportunities for our students.
Karim said such a move did not support any plan for growth and sustainable development.
Karim said during the period 2010 to 2015, UTT had "a healthy balance sheet with significant reserves, having saved millions of dollars annually year after year".
"The then government would have invested in both recurrent expenditure to ensure smooth running of the organization as well as supported capital investment to improve the existing campuses and build new infrastructure," Karim said.
He said the board also started to look at new sources of revenue through business development efforts and this would have led to the creation of new business units.
He added that while there was need to realign some resources to bring more efficiency and productivity in the organization, such drastic actions being taken by the Government and the board needs to be questioned.
"As any well established institution the organization had to look for revenue and reduce its dependence on state funds."
Karim said it was his view that the PNM was turning it's back not only on UTT but on tertiary education.
"They have cut MIC. Cut Costaatt. Cut NESC. Cut Ytepp. And now UTT. I also remind you that they first cut the Ministry that was probably the most active and leading future development in the last Government."
Significant funding needed for
Karim said significant funding was required for the completion of the Tamana Campus but given that UTT was the only national university with a key strength of having decentralized campuses, the then government took a decision to not close any existing campuses that served communities across the country.
"The Tamana facility would have been best put to use by the private sector as it was the most significant infrastructure on an industrial estate. In any case, there was no plans for use of that building as a campus. It was not designed for any particular programmes. Nor was there a significant enough pool of students in the surrounding communities to warrant such a campus being built in that location."