SLB gets US$20m from CDB
Published:Thursday | October 28, 2010 | 12:00 AM
PARLIAMENT HAS approved the guarantee of US$20 million to the Students' Loan Bureau (SLB), even as members of the House of Representatives agreed it was not enough to allow the children of the poor access to tertiary education.
The loan, which is being made available from the Caribbean Development Bank, will see the SLB being able to draw down on 20 per cent of the amount to deal with subloans which were approved last year.
The loan, which has been sourced from two of the bank's windows, carries a 2.5 per cent and 4.8 per cent interest rate.
Finance Minister Audley Shaw said the CDB loan is "not an adequate capitalisation of the SLB" and told Parliament that the board of the SLB has been given approval to seek funding from the PetroCaribe window.
"I want to see a larger pool of money available to accommo-date a larger pool of applicants," Shaw said.
Applicant increase
The number of students applying to the SLB increased from approximately 6,000 in 2008 to 8,000 in 2009. There have been 8,653 applicants this year. The spike was triggered by increased fees at tertiary institutions, as well as a rise in the number of persons seeking to access tertiary education.
Dr Omar Davies, the opposi-tion spokesman on finance, said more would have to be done to reduce interest rates to SLB borrowers, as well as provide funding to needy students.
"What we are facing is a situation where, effectively, we will be removing some of the opportunities that were available to my generation. We willbe removing them from the children of low-income families," Davies said.
Crisis ahead
He warned: "We are going to face a social crisis. There is an urgent need for a significant additional sum to be available to the SLB at explicitly con-cessionary rate. We are going to face a social crisis in terms of slamming the doors to people we have encouraged to do well in schools to matriculate."
Meanwhile, Education Minis-ter Andrew Holness said the number of students expected to seek funding from the SLB should rise in the 2011-12 academic year.
"Next year, we probably will have to go back to seek further funding to increase the capital base of the Students' Loan (Bureau), because I can guarantee you that next year you will not only see an increase in the number of applicants but we will also be seeing an increase in the amount that each applicant is expected to borrow," Holness said.