1.1 Context

Trinidad and Tobago consists of two islands that together constitute an Island state in the Caribbean located near the South American mainland. In the mid-1990s the population was estimated at 1.3 million with an average annual growth rate of below 1%. The size of the school age group began to decline in the 1990s and is now shrinking at up to 3% per year. The 0-14 year old dependency rate was 48% and life expectancy was about 74 years. GNP per capita was about $US3800 but had been falling at more than 1.5% a year over the previous decade. By the late 1990s growth had returned and GNP was projected to grow by about 3% annually. Enrolment rates in primary are close to 100% and at secondary are between 75% and 80%. Two-thirds of primary teachers are female as are about 50% of secondary teachers.

The education system is divided into early childhood provision (mostly privately financed), seven years of primary, five years of secondary and two years of sixth form study. More specifically:

· Primary education for the 5-11 age cohort consists of two years of infant classes for children aged 5 and 6 and five years of primary schooling for the 7-11 age cohort

· Secondary education is for the 12-18 age cohort, and is divided between several school types:

- Three-year junior secondary schools (Forms 1-3) for the 12-14 age cohort;

- Two-year senior secondary/senior comprehensive schools (Forms 4 and 5) for the 15-16 age cohort;

- Lower and Upper Sixth Forms for the 16-18 age cohort;

- Five-year composite (government), government secondary, government-assisted secondary, and private secondary schools (Forms 1-5) for the 12-16 age cohort;

- Seven-year government and government assisted schools (Forms 1-6) for the 12-18 age cohort.

· Higher education is available to the 19+ age group.

At the primary level, in 1998 there were 476 public schools (135 government schools and 341 assisted schools), 10 special schools, and 54 registered private primary schools. There were 101 secondary schools: 49 Traditional Sector schools (19 government and 30 assisted) and 52 New Sector schools. The latter included 19 senior secondary/senior comprehensive, 24 junior secondary, and 9 composite schools. There were only 13 registered private secondary schools (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, 1998a). The schools are either full day schools, generally 8.00 a.m.-2.30 p.m., or shift schools (20 of the 24 junior secondary), 7.20 a.m.-12.15 p.m. and 12.30 p.m. - 5.30 p.m. The numbers of primary and secondary schools have remained constant since the mid-1990s.

Trinidad and Tobago has several different types of schools distinguished by their governance. In brief these include:

- Government schools fully owned and operated by the state;

- Government Assisted schools, which are managed by a private body (usually a religious denomination) but given financial assistance by the state¹;

- Private schools, which are maintained and operated by private bodies without any assistance from the state²;

- Special schools, which are designed for those with educational disabilities.

¹ Government pays the salaries of all teachers and 75% of capital costs.

² Government purchases places from private providers. Teachers in these schools do not have to be trained.

The pattern of enrolment growth is shown in Figure 1. These show that numbers have been declining at primary and have remained fairly stable at secondary.

Figure 1: Enrolment Growth at Primary and Secondary

Total primary enrolment in the mid-1990s was declining - by 1.7% (1994/5), 2.9% (1995/6) and 2.7% (1996/7). Enrolment by age for the 5-9 year old age group declined even more in the same period (2.7%, 5.8%, 5.2% respectively) (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago 1998c and Romain 1997:32). The underlying reason for the enrolment decline is that the population of school age children is shrinking. Projections suggest that the trends will continue. Table 1 shows the most recent projections. Figure 2 shows enrolments by grade in primary confirming that the size of the enrolled cohort is shrinking. This has significant implications for the numbers of teachers that need to be trained.

Table 1: Projected School Enrolment, by Level of Education and Sex, 1990-2005

Level of Education	Sex	Projected School Enrolment
		1990	1995	2000	2005
Primary	Total	194,455	187,983	171,062	162,569
	Male	98,550	95,270	86,694	82,390
	Female	95,905	92,713	84,368	80,179
Secondary	Total	98,766	111,503	111,707	101,342
	Male	49,245	55,584	55,686	50,519
	Female	49,541	55,919	56,021	50,823

Source: Central Statistical Office. Estimates based on Census Data

Figure 2: Enrolments in Primary by Grade

In the public secondary school system sex ratios are balanced (Figure 3). Small numbers succeed in continuing their education into Form 6 classes (grade 13 and 14) and the nominal selection ratio is about 15% from Form 5 to Form 6. Drop-out and repetition are small at this level, and automatic promotion operates in most schools.

Figure 3: Enrolments Secondary

The distribution of enrolments and teachers between school types is shown in Table 2 along with data on pupil-teacher ratios, average school size and average number of teachers per school. Most pupils are in government and Roman Catholic schools. Pupil-teacher ratios are fairly uniform across the school types and averaged 24:1 in 1996. Primary schools generally have 300-400 pupils and an average of 14 teachers.

Table 2: Enrolments by School Type - Primary 1996

	Enrolment	Number of Teachers	Pupil-teacher Ratio	Number of Schools	Average School Enrolment	Average No of Teachers per School
Government	57914	2502	23	136	426	18
Roman Catholic	49814	2036	24	120	415	17
Anglican Catholic	21194	884	24	59	359	15
Presbyterian	26336	1126	23	72	366	16
Methodist	2201	97	23	9	245	11
Moravian	587	24	24	2	294	12
Seventh Day Adventist	1868	76	25	5	374	15
Hindu	18849	758	25	53	356	14
Muslim	5811	221	26	15	387	15
Other	1324	56	24	5	265	11
Average			24		349	14

Enrolments at secondary level are distributed between types of school as shown in Table 3. Pupil-teacher ratios average 21:1

Table 3: Enrolments by School Type - Secondary 1996

	Pupils	Teachers	Pupil-teacher Ratio
Junior Secondary	34795	1280	27
Senior Secondary	24002	1497	16
Composite	8024	350	23
Government Secondary	16455	862	19
Assisted Secondary	19602	956	21

At primary level the numbers of trained and untrained teachers are indicated in Table 4. This shows that about 23% (1,646) were untrained in 1997. Women represent 74% of primary teachers and 71% of those untrained. There is no significant difference between school types in the qualifications of primary teachers. The majority of these primary teachers are teacher training college graduates who have completed two years of post-school training. A small minority will have Advanced Level academic qualifications or above.

Table 4: Numbers of Trained and Untrained Teachers in Primary Schools 1996

Total			Trained			Untrained
Male	Female	Total	Male	Female	Total	Male	Female	Total
1913	5398	7311	1431	4234	5665	482	1164	1646

At the secondary level, there are differences in teachers' qualifications among different types of schools. Secondary schools generally have a mix of teachers. Some are university graduates with a degree in a subject specialty who may or may not have received pedagogical training, and some hold diplomas and certificates from non-university tertiary institutions, with or without pedagogical training. Others are secondary school graduates who may or may not have been trained in a Teachers' College³. In 1995, 3,148 of the 4,995 secondary school teachers (63%) held university degrees; only 2,557 of them (51%) were professionally trained. The junior secondary schools had the lowest percentage of graduate teachers (601 out of 1,303, or 46%), whereas the older, government assisted schools had the highest percentage of teachers who were university graduates (767 out of 931, or 82%). On the other hand, junior secondary schools had the highest percentage of trained teachers (911 out of 1,303, or 70%).

³ There is a lack of policy on staffing arrangements with respect to the graduate:non-graduate ratio. There should be a 75:25 ratio but this is not observed in practice. Graduate teachers (normally Teacher II) may be designated a non-graduate (Special Teacher III) if they came from a non-accredited University; of if from an accredited University, the person is employed at a school which has fulfilled its ratio. Such graduates may have to wait for a transfer, retirement or resignation to be recognised.

These patterns are due to the ways in which teachers have been recruited into the different types of secondary schools in the past. Many junior secondary teachers were trained as primary teachers who later up-graded their academic qualifications through short courses and gained employment in the higher paying secondary sector⁴. Some, but not all, went on to acquire university degrees. In the government-assisted secondary schools (and in the government secondary schools) the main criterion for employment as a teacher has usually been the possession of a university degree. Many teachers enter these schools without professional training and a minority take advantage of the opportunity to acquire such training through the post-graduate, in-service Diploma in Education programme at the UWI. The ratio of female secondary school teachers to male, secondary school teachers in 1995 was about 1.3:1. In nearly all school types, female teachers are in the majority.

⁴ There has been a strong migration of teachers from primary to secondary schools in order to fulfil the urgent need for teachers in the latter as the Secondary Education for All policy has been realised. Some of these teachers were trained under the UWI B. Ed. primary programme. This therefore robs primary schools of some of its better-trained teachers.

1.2 Financing

Trinidad and Tobago allocated about 4% of GDP to Education in the early 1990s, rising to 4.5% by 1995. This represented about 13% of government expenditure. The government “ has made education reform the center piece of future social development strategies” (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, 1995). The stated goals are: “(a) preparing children for primary school; (b) providing quality education at the primary level and easing the transition from primary to secondary schools; and (c) improving public institutional capacity to accomplish (a), (b), and other educational objectives effectively and efficiently” (World Bank 1995, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago 1993). Point (c) - improving institutional capacity - has not been reflected in investment in the teacher education system which has changed little.

Primary education accounted for 46% of the education budget, secondary 38%, post-secondary including Teachers’ Colleges 4%, and tertiary 7% (World Bank 1995:112) in the mid-1990s. At this time primary recurrent costs per student appear to have been about $TT⁵1,298, secondary $TT 2,058, vocational and technical $TT 3,767, teacher training $TT 1,1341, and tertiary $TT 20,953 (at 1985 prices). Teacher training thus costs about ten times as much as providing a primary school place. Direct student costs per capita as a percentage of GDP were 10%, 16%, 29%, 98% and 161% respectively for the different levels. 95% of the Ministry of Education’s expenditure is recurrent, with salaries accounting for about 70%.

⁵ $TT = 6.30 $US

Table 5 shows the percentages of the expenditure on education allocated to various sectors during the period 1994-1998. The expenditure on teacher training is relatively low. There have been no major repairs or expansion works on the Training Colleges over the past five years. Expenditure on primary education is larger than that on secondary education because of the thrust towards improving education at the basic education level over the past few years. Capital expenditure on secondary education has been minimal in the last decade. Budgeting procedures are not apparently based on capitation and projected enrolments at the different levels. They appear to depend on historic, incremental budgeting with additions influenced by macro-economic conditions and the exigencies of the contemporary policy debate in any given year.

Table 5: Expenditure on Education by Level 1994-97

Year	Total Expenditure	Pre-Primary %	Primary %	Secondary %	Teacher Training %
1994	1,005,922,761	0.2	46.5	30.7	1.7
1995	1,127,957,927	0.2	44.6	32.9	1.9
1996	1,135,158,318	0.4	44.1	29.9	1.8
1997	1,149,513,400	0.8	45.7	30.9
1998	1,365,567,800	0.7	44.6	25.3

It is important to note that the costs of primary teacher education include not only direct College costs but also the salaries of trainee teachers. In 1996 about $TT18 million was allocated to the teacher education salaries budget. Of this about $TT 3 to 4 million flows to lecturers and other support staff. The bulk of the remainder pays the salaries of trainees during a period when they are in full-time training.