Government should give priority to health and education programmes, former Education Minister Clarence Terceira charged yesterday.

Dr. Terceira was commenting on the heels of complaints to The Royal Gazette that Government had cut grants for students with learning disabilities.

Both The Reading Clinic and the Learning Centre of Bermuda had their $20,000 and $24,000 respective grants pulled by the Education Ministry this year.

And no promises have been made about restoring them.

But Dr. Terceira -- who last year secured the grant for The Reading Clinic to help cover the cost of tutoring financially-strapped public school students with dyslexia -- said he would have made sure the Ministry found money for the programme if he was still Minister.

Noting that he asked Education comptroller Harrichand Sukdeo to find funds for the clinic and The Adult Education School, he said: "I did that because I recognised the need for it. They were dealing with so many children from the public schools.'' The clinic has some 60 students most of whom are still in school.

Trustee Ann Dunstan said on average it cost $2,000 a year to teach the students who usually stay in the programme for two to three years.

Noting that the clinic relied heavily on private donations and never turned a student away who could not pay, Mrs. Dunstan said: "This year we already have 17 children from Government schools and more are waiting.

Restore special grants -- Terceira system and did not learn and therefore cannot keep jobs so they are on scholarships here.'' Dr. Terceira said he was "stimulated'' to help the clinic after he attended an Education Ministers conference in Pakistan.

One of the topics at the conference, he said, was how to deal with non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

"Governments around the world were keeping them at a distance,'' Dr. Terceira said. "But the sense of the topic was that these were key organisations and we should be embracing them and not pushing them aside.'' Learning Centre assistant director Peter Carey agreed.

"The Ministry of Education cannot be everything for everybody,'' he said.

"Ideally children can attend our programme for three months and when they are stabilised they can return to regular schools. People like the NDC (National Drug Commission) and exempted companies, who have supported us, see the need for our programme.'' Noting that governments had to make sure that NGOs used grants wisely, Dr.

Terceira said he had confidence in the clinic's and the Learning Centre's financial management.

"I would have made sure that both of them had grants,'' he said. "There are two areas of Government that should always get help, health and education. You can judge a community by those two areas. These should be priority areas.'' While acknowledging that the Education Ministry did not have a "lump sum'' fund for general grants, he said he was able to secure funds for private learning programmes with the help of Education Permanent Secretary Marion Robinson and Mr. Sukdeo.

"Even having done that we balanced the budget for education,'' Dr. Terceira added. "It was the first time we were able to do this with the help of a comptroller.

"He went to every school and taught them how to budget.

"He was very, very strict with all of us. I said to everyone that Mr. Sukdeo would be the boss when it came to the budget. He really was super.'' However, Education Minister Jerome Dill said financial pressures of restructuring the public school system were squeezing the Ministry's budget.

"We supported it (the clinic) last year because we thought the programme was important,'' he said. "And we would do what we can in the future to assist.

But this year we were being squeezed and will continue to be, particularly in the run up to the restructuring.'' However, he said the Ministry was looking at providing services in the public school system so that parents will not have to send their children to private institutions for tutoring.

But Mr. Carey pointed out that he did not know of any school system which could meet the needs of all students by itself.

"If you are going to use inclusion, you're going to have to take on a huge responsibility,'' Mr. Carey said, referring to Government's plans to have children of varying abilities in the same classroom.

"It means taking responsibility for all those needs that we were barely meeting in special schools and now have to meet in regular schools.'' Mr. Carey stressed that some children needed a special environment where there individual needs could be met.

"We're trying to create a therapeutic environment so that every interaction with them is based on a treatment plan and involves their family,'' he said of the centre which has a four-to-one student-teacher ratio.

"They are being stabilised so that they can return to the regular environment and function well.'' "A little investment in us can save them (education officials) a lot of money in the long run,'' he added.