Education and morality are not a given duo package. It infuriates me to write this, but apparently, having a good education by no means ensures that a person will turn out to have more-or-less sound morals. Which is ironic, because shouldn't all that education have gotten it across somewhere that paying for your education bills is what makes for some of the most basic requirements to being a decent human being?
Bad news about student loans and scholarships always irks me -- possibly because I have been in that system too and have come to understand that education is not free. It should be, but it's not. If one takes out a student loan, there is the undeniable implication that one will have to pay it off somehow one way or another in the future. I don't even know why I'm stating the obvious here, but clearly, it doesn't seem to be common knowledge that it's not right to exploit other people's good intentions when they sign as guarantors for your loans.
Last week, the case of Wipha Banyen, a director of a Kamphang Phet-based school, raised eyebrows nationwide when she went on a public plea. The director had signed as a guarantor for student loans from the Student Loan Fund (SLF) for 60 students from Mathayoms 4 and 5 back in 1998-99. Only half have repaid their debts, and now Wipha is left to repay the remaining amount and its interest, which totals up to 1.3 million baht. She is subject to lawsuits and court orders to have her house and land seized. It's heartbreaking to hear the things she says at the press conference, when she explains why she did it: "I had good intentions. I wanted them to be able to study. I taught them to be good. I never expected having to go through this."
The hefty number that could leave her homeless, however, is a total of many small parts. Her various students from 1998-99 owe her amounts ranging from 10,000 baht to 50,000 baht, but that was two decades ago. They're now well in their 30s, and save for the ones that are still stuck in poverty, 20 years is a darn long time to have sorted their life out. Wipha has told the press that some of her students are well-off enough to own pickup trucks, yet refuse to pay off their student loans. Latest developments regarding this thorny problem has seen the SLF looking to extend its repayment period of 15 years, as well as to go after borrowers more proactively, before taking action against loan guarantors.
It's a hit-and-run case, but it's the worst kind. Mostly, because from what the borrowers have gained, it's likely that they would have been able to improve their own livelihood with whatever skills or knowledge acquired while receiving this so-called education. But at the end of the day, when they have now reached a better place thanks to the things they have learned, they simply skirt what they owe.
There is a clear cause of burden to others that can be seen in the case of loans, but cutting corners on less direct grounds, such as scholarships, is no less aggravating. Unless it comes from a billionaire who really wants nothing in return, these scholarships are never free and usually come with stipulations meant to be carried out. The cold hard truth is that it is a business transaction of sorts, where the grooming of personnel is done only to generate certain returns. I fully understood that when I had received a scholarship from the Singaporean government for my third-year undergraduate exchange in Singapore.
Since it was also a leadership programme that I was on, I graciously dealt with sleeping at 4am for countless weeks to edit our batch's yearbook, among other things I probably would not have chosen to do myself. It's the price you pay, and although there were times when I wish I could have been out and about with my friends instead of clocking in my hours for the required work at underprivileged youth centres, I reminded myself that my time there was not to be a party animal. My time there was to be moulded into a future leader.
Therefore, I couldn't help but be outraged when a fellow scholarship receiver told me how her acquaintances navigate these grounds. There are always Thai-government scholarships given out every year, usually coming with obligations to work at particular ministries for twice the amount of years they were away studying. Her friend had never intended to stick around at the Ministry of Finance. After he was done with his required two years of working there, he applied to get transferred to the more glamorous and competitive ministry: Foreign Affairs. He wouldn't have been able to get in had it not been via this route of transferring where civil servants jump around from one ministry to another. Sure, he did the minimum that was required of him, but what he was cheating the government of was the long-term betterment of the ministry he was meant to study for, as well of the spot of someone who genuinely wanted to work in finance.
If your goals don't align with whoever it is sponsoring your education, be honest enough to turn down the opportunity for someone else more fitting. The ability to take advantage of loopholes or to outsmart the system is just as destructive as someone who isn't even studying. This kind of craftiness doesn't make for a better society, and even if you've gotten an education, it almost seems like you haven't.
Parisa Pichitmarn is the editor of Muse for the Bangkok Post.