Opposition leader, Kamla Persad Bissessar

Opposition leader Kamla Persad Bissessar is concerned about recommendations to change certain aspects of the government assistance for tuition expenses programme.

The recent report from the task force on GATE suggests that students enrolled at university would have to pay one third of their fees while postgraduate students would lose all financial assistance to continue their studies.

But Mrs Persad Bissessar says if this happens it would affect the nation’s youth and future development of the country.

She describes as frightening the negative effects that such changes to the programme will have on students.

According to Mrs Persad Bissessar, it is disastrous to implement such cuts before the start of the next academic year. She is calling on government to reject these recommendations.

Mrs Persad Bissessar believes that the government is waging an “all-out war” against students with recent moves including cuts to the government scholarship programme, ending the laptop programme for secondary school students and halting the development of the UWI south campus.