Original editorials published exclusively in The Opinion. Commentary on the issues that matter most to Jamaican students, workers, and communities — by Shaquille Ramsay, UWI Mona.
As of late 2024, more than 147,000 Jamaicans owe in excess of $53 billion in student loans — and roughly one in three active accounts is delinquent. These are not reckless borrowers. They are doctors, teachers, social workers, and engineers who did what they were told.
Jamaica needs an income-contingent repayment model anchored in the reality of its labour market, not a fantasy of it. The Government's recent Debt Reset Programme is a commendable stopgap measure. But extending repayment terms from five to ten years only delays the pain. A longer repayment window that locks borrowers into a decade of debt, during what should be their most economically productive early years, is not a solution. It is a deferral.
What Jamaica needs is a structural acknowledgement that a university graduate earning $200,000 to $300,000 per month simply cannot sustain SLB payments, rent, food, transportation, and utilities simultaneously. I call on the Government to commission an urgent review of the SLB repayment model, and to move decisively toward one that is equitable, humane, and anchored in the reality of Jamaica's labour market.
We borrowed to build this country. The least this country owes us is a fighting chance to do so.
— Shaquille Ramsay, UWI Mona
Jamaica holds the second-highest brain drain index among 177 countries — a score of 9.1 out of 10. Over 80% of Jamaicans with tertiary education who live abroad were trained here. We are educating the world at our own expense.
The health sector alone lost 60% of its nursing cohort to overseas recruitment drives in 2023. Caribbean nations, including Jamaica, are being systematically targeted by wealthier countries that benefit from our investment in human capital while we are left with empty wards and overwhelmed public hospitals. The stock of highly educated Jamaicans living abroad grew from 91,700 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 2010.
What we need is a comprehensive national plan: competitive salaries in critical public sectors, loan forgiveness tied to years of service in Jamaica, meaningful diaspora engagement, and the creation of industries that make staying a legitimate and attractive choice.
As a student at UWI, I am part of the very cohort that will face this decision. I want to stay. I want to build. But wanting to stay is not enough if the conditions for staying are never created.
— Shaquille Ramsay, UWI Mona
In 2025, the Government allocated approximately $12 billion to UWI, while UTech — Jamaica's designated national university and premier STEM institution — received just $3.5 billion. On a per-capita basis, each UWI student receives approximately three times the government subvention of a UTech student.
UTech President Dr. Kevin Brown described the situation plainly: "If the Government gives us $3, they give you $9. There's a significant gap." That cut forced UTech to raise tuition by 3% — a burden passed directly onto its students, many of whom already struggle to finance their studies.
Jamaica has consistently stated its commitment to STEM education as a national priority. UTech is Jamaica's flagship STEM institution. Yet it receives the lowest per-capita subvention of any major tertiary institution in the country. How can we pursue a knowledge-based economy while systematically underfunding the very university best positioned to produce the engineers, technologists, and scientists we say we need?
— Shaquille Ramsay, UWI Mona
Jamaica's national unemployment rate hit a record low of 3.3% in April 2025 — yet 22,900 Jamaicans were classified as underemployed. Degree holders settle for positions far below their qualifications. The jobs being created are not the jobs our graduates were trained to fill.
The core problem is structural. Universities equip students with theoretical knowledge while employers demand practical skills and work experience. The result is a devastating cycle: employers require experience, but graduates cannot gain experience because employers will not hire them without it.
We need a fundamentally different conversation between government, industry, and universities about what skills Jamaica's economy actually needs. We need structured internship programmes, mandatory industry placements, and investment in sectors — technology, renewable energy, creative industries — that can absorb and reward educated young talent.
Our graduates are not the problem. The pipeline we built for them is.
— Shaquille Ramsay, UWI Mona
Young males aged 16–24 are disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violent crime in Jamaica. At the tertiary level, 69% of enrolled students are women and only 31% are men. The unattached young male, excluded from education with limited formal employment, is not a criminal by nature. He is a policy failure waiting to be addressed.
Nearly half of youth in the Kingston Metropolitan Area reported losing someone close to them through violence. This is not a statistic. It is a generation permanently shaped by grief.
Student leaders at UWI are uniquely positioned to bridge the campus and community divide. Safety is not just a policy issue. It is an education issue. It is a development issue. And it begins with refusing to let any young Jamaican believe that the only path available to him runs through a gun.
— Shaquille Ramsay, UWI Mona
Mental health conditions cost Jamaica an estimated US$2.76 billion in lost economic output from 2015 to 2030. In Jamaica, 60% of people treated at hospitals for attempted suicide are under 24. These are not fringe statistics. They represent a generation in distress that is not being heard.
Research published in 2025 found a strong positive correlation of 0.78 between youth unemployment and depression rates among young Jamaicans. As economic precarity rises, so does psychological vulnerability.
Jamaica needs a fully funded national strategy for student mental health — one that mandates counselling services at every tertiary institution, trains academic staff to recognise signs of distress, destigmatises help-seeking, and integrates mental health support into the student experience as standard, not as exception.
Our students are not lazy. They are not ungrateful. Many of them are simply carrying more than any person their age should be asked to carry.
— Shaquille Ramsay, UWI Mona
In the May/June 2025 CSEC sitting, only 44% of students passed Mathematics — meaning more than half of Jamaica's secondary school students cannot clear the basic numeracy threshold. Of 19,000 students who sat five or more subjects, only 6,351 passed both Mathematics and English.
The consequences are direct and severe. Jamaica's dependence on foreign specialists in medicine, engineering, and computer technology is, in part, a product of the STEAM deficit in our schools. Inadequate STEM skills deter foreign investment in technology-centric industries such as BPO and software development.
The STEAM crisis is not a curriculum problem. It is a national development problem. It is an economic problem. And it demands a response at that scale — sustained, well-funded, and impossible to quietly abandon when the next election cycle begins.
Our students deserve a curriculum built for the world they are entering, not the world their grandparents left.
— Shaquille Ramsay, UWI Mona