Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills Training, Professor Emeritus Prakash Persad, has confirmed that a comprehensive review of the Ministry’s staffing requirements and scholarship offerings is currently underway.
The Ministry of Tertiary Education and Skills Training has been allocated almost $2 billion for the next fiscal year.
On Day 2 of the Standing Finance Committee, Minister Persad indicated that the Ministry is contemplating offering new scholarships.
“This is a programme we’re looking to implement and we’re looking at the costing involved in it because I think we have focused a lot on, we want to have undergraduate scholarships as opposed to post grad scholarships basically. So that is being reviewed.”
The Minister responded to questions regarding the staffing of the new Ministry.
“We are reviewing the positions, as I say, some on contract, some will be going on, so like I said, as I prefaced my presentation by saying that we will be reviewing all these things as wasteful expenditure all the time, and we’re looking at it in a serious way.”
The Member of Parliament for St. Ann’s East, Dr. Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, noted there was some discrepancy with the figures.
“Yesterday, the Ministry of Education said 117 workers were transferred to the Ministry of Tertiary Education and Skills Training, which would have accounted for a $37 million decrease in this contract employment vote from the Ministry of Education as the two Ministries were cleaved. So the Minister of Education said 117 workers, and you are saying only 27 workers under this line item?”
Minister Persad confirmed that there were only 27 employees currently working at the Ministry of Tertiary Education and Skills Training.