Govt eyes expanding GATE

Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Min­is­ter Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad said the Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing the fund­ing need­ed to ex­pand the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (GATE) pro­gramme.

Speak­ing at the Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency’s Touch of TVET, a com­mu­ni­ty out­reach ini­tia­tive, at Rio Claro West Sec­ondary School, the min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment is now look­ing at the fund­ing need­ed to move for­ward with an ex­pan­sion.

He said $450 mil­lion was spent on GATE last year. “Un­der the pre­vi­ous regime, un­der the PP part­ner­ship, it was ex­pand­ed to pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions. But you heard, it got shrunk. So, we’re look­ing at the fund­ing of it right now. The in­ten­tion is we go for­ward once there’s fund­ing avail­able; you know, mon­ey be­comes a bit eas­i­er to ac­cess that be­cause the pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions can’t train every­body. It’s not pos­si­ble,” said the min­is­ter.