Orville Taylor | The SLB: Golding presents opportunity

The banker, whose money is so heavy that it could easily cause him a hernia, has spoken. He is not a mere politician, who can run his mouth with the benefit of ignorance as an excuse. For him, interest is more than a passing acquaintance. It is the very essence of how the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB) survives. Boldly, Opposition Leader Mark Golding has spoken. If the Government takes his suggestion, the SLB will discontinue the requirement for applicants to have guarantors in order to have their loans approved.

Unfortunately, I do not at this time have the exact data on the percentage of borrowers who default and leave their guarantors out in the cold. However, it is horrific for the good, innocent and trusting friends, relatives and Samaritans, who cannot fathom how to repay the millions or how to find the missing culprits who have simply walked. Perhaps the bureau needs to do some additional sociological analysis regarding the profile, and other causal variables as to why people disappear.

Numbers from the 1990s and early 2000 surprisingly showed that the ‘prestigious’ professions, who often cannot find employment, were among the major fugitives. Interestingly, teachers were among the best risks, and they had high return rates. There is a hidden mathematics here. Somehow, we have miscalculated how valuable or how much demand there is for the high-profile jobs. Thus, junior doctors were scrambling, almost pleading for jobs, and young lawyers being unwilling to leave their other work, because the lower income does not subsidise the increased prestige. Current long-serving members of the bureau, remember my alarm and warnings.

REVOLVING LOAN SCHEME

Yet, the problem is that the SLB’s money is a revolving loan scheme. In order to survive, it must bring in the payments by hook even if the missing borrowers are not crooks. Him being a man who has a proven record of how to lend money, make a profit and recover enough in order to lend more, he knows that lending money is risky. Golding needs to tell us how to protect the Jamaican taxpayers from ‘scallawags’ who run of with our money like Matilda in Harry Belafonte’s song.

How do we make unsecured loans safe? There is a reason why a guarantor is also called ‘surety’ and collateral called ‘security’. Removal of the safety valve, whereby the SLB can get back some of its money, must be an economic and practical priority inasmuch as it is politically expedient and enticing. If he solves this, then it will be a bigger victory for him and his party.

Doubtless, the SLB needs more injection of capital and the idea is long overdue as far back as 20 years ago, at the invitation of my former student Lenice Barnett, then CEO of the SLB, I lamented that loans for the upliftment of a person who is pursuing tertiary education was among the most expensive money anyone of university age could borrow.

How dumb can a policy be, that makes it difficult for young people. especially men, to access capital for their post-secondary education? Jamaica has, like the rest of the CARICOM region, the lowest tertiary education rate in the hemisphere. Singapore is in the 80s.

DATA

However, all of the sociological and social work data show the following; women with each additional year of post-11th grade education see a) increases in income, b) reduction of number of children, c) reduction of dependency on men, d) more homeownership, e) delay in birth of first child.

Similarly, young men who stay in school, or return to school after the 11th grade, exhibit all of the above. In addition, they are also less likely to become gang members, be involved in homicides or other cases of violence. This is not rocket science; it is pure social science, and the data have been out there since Golding and Prime Minister Holness were in school. I will bet my bottom dollar that at least one of them has heard me say these things.

Across all three universities accredited by the University Council of Jamaica, the enrolment is around 70 per cent male to 30 per cent female, and we mean straight biology; not self-identification. Call it coincidence if you dare, but around 70 per cent of killers, gang members and gang murder victims are exactly in the same age cohort as those 70 per cent of youth missing from university studies.

As I said last week, I know first hand what the positive benefit of a university education has for an above-average creative individual, who does not have the economic means. An uneducated, frustrated young male, who have lots of smarts, is as dangerous to a country like ours as the red button that Russian President Vladimir Putin has his finger on now.

The time is right, and there must be little space for dissensions. The Labourites and Comrades can have a master debate about this one. However, they cannot afford to disagree.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.