Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

THE GOVERNMENT has yet to keep its promise to grant special interest rates to some students to pursue tertiary education.

But Audley Shaw, the minister of finance, says the State intends to honour its promise as soon as possible.

"There might be some sluggishness in getting to that target because of the money issue that presently pertains at the Students' Loan Bureau (SLB)," Shaw told The Sunday Gleaner.

"It is one of the things that I have asked the new (SLB) board o look at," Shaw said.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding had told Parliament last year that students pursuing studies in certain disciplines would be the beneficiaries of a four per cent interest rate from the SLB.

At that time, the interest rate for SLB loans was 12 per cent.

"It is our intention to give special concessions to students pursuing studies in specific disciplines for which a chronic shortage exists within the public sector," Golding said in his contribution to the budget debate.

A month earlier, the prime minister told Parliament that the government would steer the SLB in a direction where it would be inclined towards areas of study deemed to be critical to national development.

'We are going to offer preferential terms for those areas of study that we feel are in national demand, and we are also going to improve access to those funds," Golding said.

The prime minister had pointed to the areas of agriculture and health as being in need of critical skills.

But one budget debate and many months later, Golding has not returned to the issue of SLB interest rates, which remain high.

The list of specialised disciplines, which he said would have been published, has also not been presented.

However, Shaw said the pro-mised reduction in interest rate was still a commitment, but would have to wait until full funding was secured, which the Government was waiting on.

He told The Sunday Gleaner that the government was accessing US$15 million from the Caribbean Development Bank that would "help to put us on a downward trajectory on interest rates.

Productivity

The issue of academic discipline has been linked to productivity, with the ministry of labour saying there is need for more specialised skills in the market. A recent labour market study, commissioned by the labour ministry, lists educators, medical practitioners and agriculturists as persons who are in high demand.

Golding had said that the government would implement policies to ensure that persons moved into those areas for which there is a high labour market demand and for which the country would receive the highest returns on its investment.

Data published by the Economic and Social Survey Jamaica 2009 (ESSJ) indicates an undersupply of persons in areas thought to be critical.

The ESSJ says Jamaica produced 83 agriculturists from its universities in 2009, a marked improvement over the 31 the previous year, but far below the 128 in 2007.

The output of mathematicians was 16 persons in 2009, down from 54 in 2008.

Decline

The number ofmedical doctors trained has fallen from 98 in 2008 to 82 in 2009, while the output of nurses was 501 in 2009, compared to 752 in 2008, and 308 in 2007.

According to Shaw, the new SLB board has been asked to look at policies which could allow more nurses to access loans.

"I have asked them to look at the tenure of the loan depending on the particular sector. For instance, the nurses were finding that they could not access it. Because of their modest income, the time for repayment would be too short," Shaw said.

Students' Loan Bureau debtors are given 10 years to repay their loans irrespective of their income.