Tobago parents question late book grant payments

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Days be­fore the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gins, To­bag­o­ni­ans are ques­tion­ing Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s cri­te­ria to ap­prove book grants and why the dis­burse­ment is be­ing done so late.

On Wednes­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion an­nounced that grants were avail­able via di­rect de­posit to bank ac­counts or cheques at the Ed­u­ca­tion Di­vi­sion in Scar­bor­ough.

But one par­ent who ap­plied told Guardian Me­dia she is yet to re­ceive an up­date on the sta­tus of her ap­pli­ca­tion.

Up­on hear­ing that cheques were be­ing dis­trib­uted, she said she checked her ap­pli­ca­tion on­line, which said it was 80 per cent com­plete.

As she left the di­vi­sion emp­ty-hand­ed yes­ter­day, she said par­ents are now scram­bling for funds to get the nec­es­sary sup­plies for their chil­dren.

She ex­plained she had been pur­chas­ing some sup­plies in the in­ter­im just in case the grant was not ap­proved.

“What about peo­ple who not able to get any­thing at all?” she asked.

An­oth­er par­ent crit­i­cised the min­istry for the tardy dis­burse­ment of grants.

“This is poor man­age­ment. Some have no help; it’s just wait and see. Every­body now have to rush in the store and might not get the books they want. Gov­ern­ment has to be prompt,” the par­ent said.

He com­pared the sit­u­a­tion to the late start to school re­pairs by the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, spec­u­lat­ing it is a sign of a wider na­tion­al is­sue.

Par­ent Crys­tal Gor­don was in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day shop­ping for back-to-school sup­plies for her two chil­dren.

She told Guardian Me­dia she did not ap­ply for the book grant this year as she knew it would be late.

“I know it al­ways last minute and it would frus­trate peo­ple,” she said.

Mean­while, a moth­er of four, buy­ing school uni­forms at Nel­son’s Book­store, Scar­bor­ough, urged the gov­ern­ment to do bet­ter to sup­port par­ents.

She said many sin­gle par­ents are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing fi­nan­cial chal­lenges.

“Things last minute for me. As a sin­gle par­ent, hav­ing more than one chil­dren, most par­ents last minute.

“The re­sources to get back-to-school things, every­thing run­ning out. The gov­ern­ment say­ing they there with you, and they not re­al­ly. They late as usu­al.”

How­ev­er, she said par­ents of­ten find a way—de­spite the cir­cum­stances—to get things done.

“We al­ways know we have to do it, but it does catch we off-guard. As par­ents, we have to make ends meet. God is good, and we have to try.”

Mean­while, an of­fi­cial in the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion con­firmed its back-to-school sup­port, which is sep­a­rate from the min­istry, had been dis­bursed well in ad­vance.

The of­fi­cial, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said the di­vi­sion had learned from past mis­takes.

Un­like the min­istry pro­gramme, the of­fi­cial said the di­vi­sion does not dis­trib­ute cash but sup­plies.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the min­istry to find out how many book grants were ap­proved for To­ba­go, but an of­fi­cial said that da­ta was not avail­able at the mo­ment.

How­ev­er, the of­fi­cial promised to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion soon.