Professor Paresh Narayan, of the Centre for Global Busi­ness, Monash University, says the amount of money owed under the Tertiary Education Loans Scheme was worrying.

He made the comments while presenting at the Tertiary Scholar­ship and Loans Service Stakehold­er Awareness workshop in Suva yesterday.

Professor Narayan said $581 mil­lion in outstanding debt was owed under TELS with the overdue amount standing at $317 million.

“Out of the total amount owed, the overdue amount was about 55 per cent,” he said.

“So, what it means is that stu­dents haven’t paid, well these are no longer students but grown adults who are hiding somewhere and not paying up what is due.

“I think this comes down to eth­ics and it reflects on our school system.”

He told the participants that the scenario reflected on what was be­ing taught to children.

“I think ethics plays a big part in this and if we are not ethical, it re­flects on our primary and second­ary schools.

“The school system needs to have curriculums that embrace accountability, responsibility and discipline.

“We focus a lot on schools about discipline but ethics is a big part of it. I think this is somewhat a reality check that we have a prob­lem.”

He said there were incentives in place which included if someone had a debt of $20,000 and paid with­in the first two years, the person would get a 50 per cent discount.

“The incentives don’t stop there, there is a 25 per cent discount if you do miss the first two years of repayment, you can pay in either year 3 or 4.

“Those things are in place yet we have about 55 per cent of the popu­lation who don’t do the right thing.

“We need to use that money to provide other things.”

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