Opposition MP Premila Kumar claims that students have not enrolled into Universities because of lack of information from the Government on what will happen to the Tertiary Education Loans Schemes (TELS).
In Parliament today, Kumar said this is because students are unsure whether the People’s Coalitions Government will continue with TELS or if TELS goes out the window and is replaced by scholarships.
She said then who will qualify?
“The enormity of promising a piece of moon just to win an election is now starring in the eyes of Government because they went ahead and made election promises without realizing that its easier said than done.”
The former Minister for Education also highlighted it was important that any Government needed to borrow money, including the FijiFirst Government, for capital projects.
Kumar said the FFP government never defaulted on its repayment.
“We had strategies in place to manage the debt, continue with capital works along with socio-economic assistance to the most vulnerable members of our community, as explained many times in the Parliament.”
“Government debt shouldn’t become an excuse for the Coalition Government to borrow further. Borrowing depends on how good your economic and social policies are. How robust your financial and economic governance are—- something that lenders and development partners had confidence in the FijiFirst Government, which enabled us to borrow,” she added.
