IT WAS reported in last Thursday's Gleaner that Jamaican landlords are reluctant to accept university students as tenants because of their unruly and irresponsible behaviour. The Lodging Department at the University of the West Indies (UWI), whose job it is to find off-campus housing for students, has confirmed the complaints and pointed out that this is a classic case of the good having to suffer for the bad. For the current school year, only 400 of 900 requests for accommodation could be satisfied.
One of the main complaints is that students do not pay their rent. Perhaps this should come as no surprise as persons who received from Government an 80 per cent tuition subsidy may likely expect the same facilitation from their landlords.
What is particularly sad is that many of the complaints are about female students who, according to some landlords, turn the premises they rent into brothels. Often up to 10 persons crowd into accommodation for which only single rent is being paid which is irresponsibility bordering on fraud.
We have been concerned for sometime about the vulgarity and lack of moral conscience among the generation of young Jamaicans now attending schools up to the tertiary level. This was horrifyingly brought home to the public when a posse of University of Technology (UTech) students, chasing an alleged car thief on campus, cornered him in a culvert, set fire around the opening to prevent him from escaping and watched him drown. This was mob violence of the worst kind, a reaction which took no account of the moral precept that the punishment must be commensurate with the crime.
University students all over the world tend to be unruly, often up to mischief and glad to take full advantage of sowing their wild oats. But we detect a darker, more sinister element in what is happening in Jamaica, a combination of political cynicism and a spreading moral depravity.
One suggestion for dealing with the housing problem put forward by an officer at UTech is to furnish landlords with the telephone numbers of the parents of the students so they can be reported. We are not convinced that this will do much good. Bad behaviour should be reported to the university involved which should take stern disciplinary measures, especially for repeated offences.
The students cannot have it both ways. If they accept a subsidy from the taxpayers of Jamaica, they must abide by the accepted mores of those paying the bills. This is where zero tolerance must start if the future leaders of the nation are going to be able to shoulder their responsibilities.
