“Pure evilness and unjustness!” TTHTI faculty rages as students asked to pay GATE shortfall to graduate

“How do young people not get disenchanted with education and the stupid systems that are put in place in Trinidad and Tobago when over 50 students are told that they cannot graduate because the Institute that they belong to did not receive GATE funding for them?

“And, to add insult to injury, they are told they have to dig into their own pockets to pay as much as TT$16,000 within a month or else they cannot receive their certificates!”

The following Letter to the Editor was written by an anonymous faculty member at the Trinidad and Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute (TTHTI), which informed graduating students on 19 December 2017 that, owing to non-payment of tuition fees by GATE, they will not receive certificates unless they pay between $12,000 and $16,000 to the school by 12 January 2018:

“For evil to succeed, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

I’ve been trying to calm down for the past seven hours but I can’t hold my tongue anymore and will not go quietly into that still night without getting this off my chest.

How do young people not get disenchanted with education and the stupid systems that are put in place in Trinidad and Tobago when over 50 students are told that they cannot graduate because the Institute that they belong to did not receive GATE funding for them?

And to add insult to injury, they are told they have to dig into their own pockets to pay as much as TT$16,000 within a month or else they cannot receive their certificates! Certificates that these students have literally shed blood, sweat and tears over!

What utter shit are we telling ourselves to ever think that this is okay?

The unfair treatment of students is something that I cannot tolerate in the least because I know personally of some of these kids’ history. When you can use students as pawns in whatever dirty politics is being played out, you and the devil must be some sort of close friends—because it reeks of pure evilness and unjustness.

These kids have done everything that has been asked of them, and now you tell them this news a week before Christmas?

Where the hell are some of their single-parent homes supposed to get the money from?

But we sit as citizens of this backward country and wonder why young people find themselves in criminal activity and unlawful acts. It’s bullshit reasons like this!

And I’m sickened to think that a group of “educated” clowns sat and thought up this plan and really believed in their hearts that it made any sense. I only hope that when the universe claps back at them for all their evil deeds, they don’t have to think too hard about what they did to deserve it.

This is not a simple matter of life being unfair but more of human beings being inhumane and not thinking of the long run with education in this country. Somebody in authority needs to step in here and help these kids because seeing them brought to tears and anger and frustration was the most heartbreaking thing I have experienced in a while.

I can’t anymore, nuh, I can’t! The place where I used to call home has been shat on and completely flushed down the crapper and it hurts like hell.

Editor’s Note: TTHTI CEO Brian Frontin told Loop TT that: “It is not only students that have felt the pain caused by the Government’s refusal to pay through the GATE programme but the TTHTI has also suffered great losses and continues to suffer as Government has also refused to pay the TTHTI’s allocated subvention payments to the severe prejudice of the Institute, its employees and its students.”

Minister of Education Anthony Garcia has described the stand-off as a matter for the TTHTI board and its students since “the Board does not operate under the guidance of the Ministry.”

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