Remove the cause of debt in education

Saturday June 13, 2009
Remove the cause of debt in education


I refer to an article headlined “
A tall order for study loan provider”. I’d like to suggest that the National Higher Education Fund Corp (PTPTN) channel its remaining funds to strengthen primary and secondary education.

A default rate of 30% is very high and the projected RM46bil deficit by 2020 is extremely worrying. Debt is undesirable and especially for intangibles like education. Compounding the problem is job market mismatch for the graduates.

The thought that you have given me a degree which does not provide me with the job, the income, and the satisfaction I desire is a powerful appeaser for the conscience of a defaulter.

The Government must shun the culture of debt and teach people to do likewise. People in debt are not free and they eventually end up despising the debts that rendered them prisoners and those who gave them the opportunity to incur the debt.

Furthermore, it should be remembered that the present higher education system produces employees and not entrepreneurs.

Employees are a liability. They are slow moving, demanding, expensive, and uncooperative. It is the entrepreneur that drives the business and makes it profitable.

Therefore education must aim at producing employees who think like entrepreneurs first and later become entrepreneurs in their own right.

This can be achieved by having a strong primary and secondary school system where students are taught language, mathematics, and the arts in sufficient depth for them to be job market ready by the time they complete Form 5 or Form 6.

University is for those who feel the need to seek more knowledge and conduct added research in order to progress with their work, and who are also able and willing to pay to acquire this extra knowledge.

It is wrong to think that if education were not subsidised, some people would never get a chance to study. The poor, like the rich, have their priorities. If they think that education is important to them, they will find the money for it.

It is grossly unfair and unjust to blame defaulters for not paying up. If the Government feels that it is important to remove the cause of harm to prevent the disease, as in the case of smoking and gambling, it should also remove borrowing, which is the cause of debt, because from being in debt spring many vices and much regret.

Marisa Demori, Ipoh