Officials from the Ministry of Education revealed on Tuesday
that a scheme was in the pipeline to help poverty-stricken students
pay their loans in the form of scholarships. But the condition is
that they must agree to work in an underdeveloped region for a
required period of time.
This scheme provides a ray of hope to those students who are
going to graduate but have no way of repaying their loans. It is
also welcome news for those who have received admission notices but
hesitate to apply for an education loan because they would be
unable to repay it after graduation.
It should also be good news for the banks required to provide
such loans. In recent years, they have often been involved in legal
cases with those students who fail to repay their loans. If state
money is used to repay loans that may otherwise be defaulted, banks
would be willing to grant such loans, and more poor students would
be able to get loans.
If the positive effect on employment is taken into
consideration, this plan may well kill two birds with one
stone.
With the scheme encouraging more students to go to
underdeveloped regions, the employment rate of university graduates
will certainly rise. The scheme will also boost the skilled
workforce of these underdeveloped regions, which are in urgent need
of college graduates to promote their development.
But as soon as the proposals were made public, concerns were
expressed that such a scheme may be misused.
In the designing of this scheme, detailed requirements must be
made about which regions should be classified as underdeveloped and
how long a student needs to work there before their loan can be
paid with a scholarship.
Ambiguous or vague definitions will become loopholes to be taken
advantaged of by a corrupt few.
A supervision mechanism is also needed in case some graduates
pull strings to get certificates without actually going to where
they are supposed to work or even use forged documents to get a
scholarship.
The government has already done a great deal and is trying to do
more to relieve as much as possible the financial pressure on
students from poverty-stricken families.
More than 2.4 million students have been aided by state
education assistance loans since the practice started in 1999.
We have reason to believe more policies will pave the way for
poor students to finish their higher education.
(China Daily July 28, 2006)