Education a priority in Sectoral Debate
WITH the overwhelming focus of the House of Representatives on the medium-term economic policy over the year, moderating with the Extended Fund Facility agreement in place, increasing attention is being paid to education, especially the financing of that sector.
This has been very noticeable as the Sectoral Debate proceeds with the issue being addressed by both Minister of Education Ronald Thwaites and Opposition spokeswoman on education, Marisa Dalrymple Philibert.
But, freshman MP, Dr Dayton Campbell (North West St Ann) had tabled a motion on the financing of tertiary education and institutions from as far back as February.
Dr Campbell’s motion asked that the House use its Human Resource and Social Development Committee (HRSDC), chaired by Opposition MP Rudyard Spencer, “to urgently examine the adequacy and affordability of funding tertiary education in Jamaica” and report to the House on its findings and recommendations.
The resolution was obviously triggered by the poor financial state of the Students’ Loan Bureau, exposed by the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), chaired by another Opposition MP, Edmund Bartlett. Campbell is a member of both the HRSDC and PAAC.
The freshman MP said that his motion was based on the premise that the country’s development is directly linked to the educational qualification of its citizens, and the cost of tertiary education has a direct bearing on national development.
But, despite the urgent educational issues, especially with the semester now drawing to a close, the House has been taking its own sweet time dealing with the motion. It was scheduled to be debated last week but was postponed.
Dr Campbell, impatiently, raised the issue and dealt with it extensively in his Sectoral Debate presentation, recently, calling for an amnesty for tertiary students with outstanding SLB debts, and a new financing policy for the University of the West Indies (UWI).
“I know of a student who borrowed $394,000 while studying, incurred interest of $194,000, repaid $850,000 and still owed $450,000,” he told the House.
“I posit that education ought not to be a debt sentence. I repeat, education should not be a D-E-B-T sentence. I want to call again for amnesty for beneficiaries of the SLB to vitiate against payment of interest,” he argued.
Campbell suggested that the increase in the education tax, which was included in the government’s $16-billion tax package in February, should finance a trust for tertiary education.
“The trust’s solitary focus would be to provide an opportunity for students from the bowels of the society, that have worked hard to matriculate into our universities and colleges,” he said.
He proposed that the $2.8 billion accruing from the increased education tax annually, supported by an additional $2.8 billion from a .25 per cent increase on employee’s and .5 per cent from employers, would be enough to finance the project.
“Education is the only legitimate vehicle for upward social mobility, (and) I am a living example of this,” the year-old MP declared.
He also suggested a more cost-effective way of running the UWI, based on a proposal for sustainable funding from Professor Hubert Devonish, which would make the UWI the institution of choice in Jamaica, but open to students from other contributing territories as well as the wider Caribbean and the world as well.
He said that this would make a significant contribution to the economy of Jamaica, in relation to employment, foreign exchange earnings and general tax revenues.
For this to occur, however, Campbell said that the Mona campus would need substantial investment in its plant, buildings and facilities, as well as its human resources.
Specifically offering internationally competitive salaries and working conditions to attract and retain the best scholars who, in turn, would attract a larger number and proportion of the non-government-sponsored students needed to maximise the positive effects of the UWI on the economy.
“Mr Speaker, the long and short of the argument is that we must see education as an investment,” Dr Campbell insisted.
Speaking earlier in the same debate, Minister of Education Ronald Thwaites noted that, in recent years, Jamaica has experienced a burst of offerings for diplomas and degrees.
Thwaites pointed out that there are 17 public universities and colleges offering programmes, and the number of students in public and private tertiary institutions moved from 22,000 in 1991/92 to 69,000 in 2011/12. He said that the target now should be to double that figure by 2020.
“We are encouraging students to enroll only in those programmes which have Approved Programme Status and/or [accreditation] by the University Council of Jamaica, so as not to face disappointment. The line in the advertisement which says ‘registered with the Ministry of Education’ is not good enough,” he cautioned.