Trinidad and Tobago has a well educated labour force of about 500,000 with an adult literacy rate in the 80-85% range. Primary level education is compulsory. Approximately seventy percent (70%) of the 12-15 age group attend secondary school, the rest pursue other forms of training. The regional Caribbean Examinations Council, taken at form 5 (grade 12), is accepted as an entry qualification for higher education in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

After form 5 (grade 12), some students continue in secondary school for an additional two years to take the British 'Advanced Level' examinations of community standard, set up by the universities of Cambridge and London. Two private schools based on the American and Canadian education systems opened for enrolment in 1994.

Approximately 5,000 students attend fifteen (15) technical and vocational schools. The government also sponsors a Youth Training and Employment Partnership Programme (YTEPP), whose nine month courses turn out eight thousand (8,000) graduates a year. The Trinidad and Tobago Hotel school, in Chaguaramas, offers courses for the hotel, catering and travel industries. Various other technical and vocational programmes exist, some of which are managed by Non-governmental Organisations, SERVOL is a noted example of these.

The University of the West Indies (UWI) has one of its campuses at St. Augustine, Trinidad; the other two are at Mona, Jamaica and Cave Hill, Barbados. The St. Augustine campus offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the areas of Agriculture, Business Administration, Engineering, Humanities, Languages, Law, Natural and Social Sciences. Its current enrolment is 3,300 students. The UWI Institute of Business, which opened three years ago, offers Post Graduate courses on business-related topics and develops in-house programs for local companies. Their programme offerings now include Executive Masters of Business Administration (EMBA) and International MBA offerings.

The National Institute of Higher Education, Research and Technology, (NIHERST), operates a college of health science, a college of nursing, a school of languages and an information technology college. The institute is also running a UNIDO funded project to develop software writing skills. The Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, located at Mount Hope, between Piarco Airport and Port-of-Spain is one of the leading facilities of its kind in the Caribbean. The complex comprising some seventy buildings is both a Teaching and Medical Science facility.