THE PRIME Minister, in his Budget presentation, has frankly admitted to "the financial crisis which now faces thousands of students in tertiary institutions". Both the Government and students have come to acknowledge that full state financing of tertiary education is not a possibility.
The Prime Minister's response to the financial crisis is a work/study programme to assist 2000 students with 30 per cent of their tuition for one academic year. The proposal is a drop in the bucket when it is considered that there is a total of over 60,000 students in a range of post-secondary institutions, the vast majority of whom must be considered needy.
The Government has ambitious plans to lift tertiary enrolment to 15 per cent, up from the current five per cent or so, by 2010. It is quite clear that the Budget cannot be expected to deliver further financial support for education. Creative alternatives will have to be found.
In his column last Thursday, Martin Henry floated a proposal for increasing the capital base of the Student Loan Bureau so that the agency can expand the credit financing of tertiary education. With a mere $266 million of disbursement last year, the SLB is servicing only 17 per cent of tertiary students on a needs basis which many applicants find unfair.
The proposal is for some funds from the considerable annual intake of the HEART Trust to be lent to the SLB for increasing its capital base and allowing expanded lending. Last year HEART intake exceeded $2 billion from the three per cent payroll levy which is its source of support. Meanwhile, the Budget allocation to the tertiary education sector was just over $3 billion.
As the columnist pointed out, while the training agency was established with good intentions and has done well in many ways, in some ways it represents the rewarding of the failure to do well in secondary education, while those who have done well and go on to tertiary education are punished by the cess.
An avenue of redress, without neglecting the socially and economically necessary training programmes of the HEART Trust, is to provide some loan financing for tertiary education for which there is such an urgent need. The proposition seems worthy of careful consideration.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
