By Garwin Davis, Assistant News EditorLEADER OF the Opposition Edward Seaga said yesterday that his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government in 1986 "made the wrong move" when it imposed a cess on tertiary education.
He said given the opportunity to run the country again, the JLP would be committed to removing the cess.
Speaking at The Gleaner's Editors Forum at the company's North Street offices, downtown Kingston, yesterday, Mr. Seaga said the decision to charge fees to students attending the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the then College of Arts Science and Technology (CAST), now the University of Technology (UTech), was done out of sheer necessity and at a time when the country was experiencing a major economic crisis.
"When the cess was imposed in the 1980s it was at a time when we had a crippling situation of the worst economic recession the world had had in 50 years," the JLP leader explained. "The bottom had dropped out of our bauxite and alumina industries, etc., etc... and it was introduced at that time as one of the cost-saving measures or improvement of revenue measures to help to close the budgetary gap which we were committed to do."
In February of 1986, the JLP's Minister of Education, Dr. Mavis Gilmore, announced in Parliament that the Government would be imposing fees ranging from $900 to $6,000 annually on UWI and CAST students. The announcement was followed by massive street protests by students attending both institutions and also widespread criticism from the wider society. The students also took their protest to the gates of Jamaica House where they were joined by members of the People's National Party (PNP).
A defiant Mr. Seaga, whose Government was also embroiled in a wage dispute with teachers, however, held firm, noting that while he understood the cries of the students, the Government would not roll-back the cess.
Yesterday, in explaining the reason for his change of heart, Mr. Seaga said that the result of a study he had commissioned to look into the economic background of many of the students made him realise he had made a huge mistake.
"After it was imposed and the objections were raised so strenuously I commissioned Sir Philip Sherlock to do a study of the economic circumstances of the students who were at the university," Mr. Seaga said. "And when I saw the results in terms of the kind of background ... economic background ... the financial background the students came from I was very upset myself and I knew I had made the wrong move. Those students really cannot afford it ... they don't come from homes that can afford that extra cost."
Mr. Seaga added that while the JLP was fully committed to removing the cess on tertiary education, the process would have to begin at both the basic school and secondary levels.
"We have a choice on this occasion," the JLP leader added. "Either we remove the cess or we remove the cost-sharing. We have to select the removal of the cost-sharing at the secondary schools and the removal of the fees at the basic schools because that's where it starts ... you won't get your university student unless you improve that system.
"We have to start at the beginning then move up stream; we will hopefully get to that stage where we can remove the cess for university students."
