COSTAATt, pawn in a political game

THE EDITOR: During my tenure as Adviser to the Minister of Human Development, Youth and Culture in the last UNC administration, quite a few important projects relating to tertiary education, cultural development across racial boundaries and youth issues were carefully thought out. These were in the process of implementation before the trio decided to bring the government to its knees.

COSTAATT was one of the projects on Minister Ganga Singh’s agenda and I was placed in a position to look at aspects of the development of a unified community college integrating approximately seven campuses throughout the length and breadth of Trinidad and Tobago. These campuses previously operated on their own with funding allocations coming to them from different government subventions. The consequences were that these campuses — John Donaldson Technical Institute, San Fernando Technical College, Eastern Caribbean Institute of Caribbean and Forestry (ECIAF), NIHERST, Joint Services Staff College, Point Fortin Government Vocational Centre and an institute from Tobago — that came under the initial umbrella of COSTAATT, were sorely lacking in terms of space, state of the art equipment and all that it takes to make tertiary level schools efficient and functional. Most of these institutes were in a dilapidated condition.

The UNC administration inherited this sordid state of affairs in tertiary education from the PNM and we had to solve this problem by dealing with these institutes one-by-one. This was difficult as the principals were, for the majority, PNM appointed, and did not want to give up their positions, or in no way were they going to be challenged by a new concept which would make them effective as principals and administrators. In other words, on all the campuses we were dealing with “saw-dust” Caesars who would not budge! We looked at the funding aspect of COSTAATT and applied for a $350M dollar loan from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) for constructing the administrative headquarters in St Joseph close to the St Joseph farm. Funds ($86M) were also in the pipeline to be sourced from the Inter American Development Bank (IADB). I was also in the process of approaching the EUROBANK (EU) and a consortium of local banks for additional funding to make COSTAATT functional. Nothing about race here — only the overall development of tertiary education for everyone in TT.

The senior staff of NIHERST and myself worked tirelessly on all aspects of making COSTAATT a reality including developing new two-year degree programmes that would encourage the seventeen to twenty-four year old range bracket to go back to school even if they did not gain the full five CXC regular passes. Nothing was discussed about targetting Afro-Trinidadian males, as it was understood that we were going to target all students who wanted to earn a degree at the tertiary level. In a few meetings the issues involved were to get working people, youth with three to four CXC passes and others who thought that they needed academic and practical degrees to move them up in the world of work. Remediation was to be done to ensure that students lacking in the full CXC passes would quickly accomplish this. These two-year degrees or Associate in Science or Associate in Arts, would also allow these students to eventually apply to UWI and pursue a four year baccalaureate degree or move higher up in tertiary education if they so desired.

It would also allow UWI to gain vital statistics on forecasting the size of student intake from COSTAATT who were majoring in specific disciplines and who would want to move to higher degrees at the university. This would give the university departments enough time to acquire funding for building additional classrooms, hiring instructors and getting specific instructional and other type of technology to address the needs of a growing student population in their specific disciplines — from an associate degree to a bachelor’s degree and onward. In other words, UWI would serve as a conduit for students with the required grades for admission after two years and would not “water down” the admission process to the university but enhance it. My name came up as a player for the CEO position late in 2001 but Minister Ganga Singh and others at a higher level thought that Dr Gillian Paul, because of her hard work and diligence in making COSTAATT a reality should get the top job. Nothing like racial background came up here and everyone agreed that she “footed the bill” quite well. Would the PNM in our position assess the situation the way it was done by Minister Ganga Singh and his committee? Obviously not! Race would have been the critical factor here — not hard work or faith in seeing COSTAATT a reality. And here lies the fundamental difference between the UNC and the PNM. The UNC is still about inclusion of all races, not hand-picked people who would tow the line! But hardworking people of all races who would focus on the development of this country together.

Today we see COSTAATT as the pawn in a game for pseudo-intellectuals and PNM politicians who would rather see the education of youth in TT reduced to nothing as was done in a similar fashion during the Eric Williams era with the building of massive secondary comprehensive schools which have not served the education of our youth well. Hopefully the funding from well-meaning international banks and local consortia will not be compromised by loose racial talk and innuendo. Maybe when these entities lend us money for development projects they should insert clauses that prohibit racial favouritism and quixotism before the government of the day can access such.

Quo vadis TT?
DR CHRIS MAHADEO
Port-of-Spain