In recent weeks, there have been extensive discussions on problems related to the repayment of student loans. However, apart from an article by Professor Alvin Wint, we have not addressed the core of the problem, which is the nature of the loans system used in Jamaica and the Anglophone Caribbean. This type of loan system requires the beneficiary to repay over a specified period a fixed amount each month until the loan is fully repaid. There is no doubt that this system is failing to meet the repayment needs of the Students' Loan Bureau (SLB), based on the high default rates.

The SLB should move to implement incomecontingent loans in which repayment is a proportion of a beneficiary's income each year. These loans are more equitable and address more fully the ability-to-pay principle, since payments are in proportion to income. Many countries, including Commonwealth countries such as Ghana, New Zealand and Australia, use this type of loan.

Repayment suggestions

It is also suggested that the SLB use existing government structures such as the NIS, income tax system, and the pensions or superannuation system to administer loan repayment in Jamaica.

The issue is not about poor selection of unmarketable degree programmes or lack of suitable jobs and Jamaica's inability to support them, as the aim of higher education is about development and understanding; not about turning out products for the market. While the market is an important part of the socio-economic sphere, there are also many other areas which contribute to a country's development, hence there will always be the need for all the different types of programmes that our students pursue at the university level. Students who specialise in subjects such as the humanities should not be discouraged because our development is not based only on the so-called market forces. The board of the SLB and its functionaries must seriously rethink the current loan system, if they are to address the problem of high default on loans in the long run.

I am etc.,

R. D. Fritzgerald

Nesbeth

Kingston 7