• 
• 

Published on August 24, 2007

Sudden changes in the government student-loan programme are causing confusion and worry, especially among cash-strapped students who are afraid for their educational future.

"I have yet to get money from the loan. Don't they see that one student has already committed suicide and several others have had to offer sexual services to continue their education?" read a comment on the Office of the Student Loan Fund (www.studentloan.or.th)

The student added: "Don't they know that we, children of poor farmers, really can't wait?"

Earlier this year, a fourth-year student at the Nakhon Si Thammarat Rajabhat University took her own life. Friends believe uncertainty about her educational loan drove her to suicide.

The Office of the Student Loan Fund has taken far longer than usual to facilitate payment to its loan recipients this year, partly because its former fund manager, Prempracha Supasamout, completed his term on April 1 and his succes-sor Thada Martin needed time to review documents and processes.

However, the main reason for the delay is because the Office of the Student Loan Fund had to handle a greater work-load to respond to Education Minister Wijit Srisa-an's decision to scrap the Income Contingent Loan (ICL). When he made the decision, he introduced no measures to alleviate associated problems.

The ICL concept came on stream last year to much fanfare during the previous administration.

The former premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, described it as a way for children to climb the social ladder. Students could seek loans to pay tuition fees for their undergraduate courses, regardless of how much their family earned in a year.

Recipients were required to start repaying loans when they earned more than Bt16,000 a month. Interest on the loans would be calculated according to the annual inflation rate.

More than 300,000 stu-dents applied for the ICL programme, which was expected to replace the old student-loan programme, that was open to children from families with an annual income of less than Bt150,000.

A year later, the interim gov-ernment was formed following the coup. The ICL programme was scrapped and reverted back to the former student-loan programme.

With the old condition of loans for cash-strapped stu-dents, the programme offered lower interest rates but required recipients to repay the loan two years after their graduation. As part of the loan, students can also get allowances for living expenses too.

However, as many as 150,000 ICL recipients found their family's annual income was higher than Bt150,000.

To help these students, the interim government agreed to exempt them from the family-income conditions. But that wasn't the end of the problem.

With the return to the old system - plus more complicated cases to handle - it has taken the Office of the Student Loan Fund more time to put everything in order.

Many universities and vocational schools have yet to receive tuition fees from students that are to be paid via the student-loan programme. One student complained on the Office of the Student Loan Fund's Web board that his institute had demanded tuition fees from him and promised to return him the money later.

"What is the loan for then?" he said.

Bancha Kerdmanee, who chairs the Vocational School Association of Thailand, said students from cash-strapped families were struggling because they needed living-expense allowances now.

"We hope the living allowances will be given to the students urgently," Bancha said, adding that many schools could wait a bit longer for tuition fees.

Thada said his office needed time because it had to prepare new contracts for students who had formerly applied for the ICL programme and had to categorise the loan recipients who could switch to the lower interest rate. "But we will give the living-expense allowance to students before the end of this month."

Tuition fees would be wired to schools' and universities' bank accounts shortly. And he promised the payment would not be delayed in the next semester.

Chularat Saengpassa

The Nation