Dear Editor,

In an economy characterised by great uncertainty I find it hard to fathom the administration’s rationale for cutting the subvention given to universities, specifically UTech.

Education Minister Andrew Holness had promised there would be a “nominal freeze” on the annual subsidy rather than a cut, saying any new policy would be gradual, with adequate notice, and would ensure “no one is worse off and, at least, one person is better off”.

Now, the government has cut the education budget across-the-board on the basis that revenues are down. The government knew their revenue targets were overstated and unattainable, so more should have been done to prepare students for the inevitable. In that vein, the government should have moved quickly to revamp the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB), if students were expected to meet the shortfall resulting from changes to their university’s budget. The revamping should include extending the repayment period, reducing to one the number of guarantors required and making loan-repayment income contingent (that is, the more you earn the more you repay and if you are not working you don’t start repayment period).

With the budget cut being communicated just before the school year ends, it is inevitable that a significant number of students will fall out – most likely the poorest students.The aim should be to get poor persons into tertiary institutions, not to force them out. It is unclear whether the administration sees education as priority as their actions don’t indicate same. Instead, it keeps funding mature, low-impact sectors instead of education, which has been proved to have a positive high impact on economic growth. This is a crisis indeed.

We need not comment on the consequential burden and repercussions unemployment has on the economy. The only thing the students are left to do is to keep praying and agitating for more investment in education. We might as well start collecting bottles to sell to pay for tuition. That is, if they are not taxed. This is what our government has left us to do!

Hodine Williams

Presidentadvisor@utechstudentsunion.com