In a scheme that led to other sectors being robbed of badly needed resources, the last administration struck a deal with the then Opposition to hand over 15 per cent of the Budget to education. The impracticality of the deal is evidenced in its non-realisation. That Opposition is now Government, pouring 13 per cent of the national Budget into education, and as one of its first acts in Government, cancelling the cost-sharing arrangement in secondary schools. When the first-priority debt-servicing costs are removed, that 13 per cent to education more than doubles, as a portion of the what lef' balance of the Budget.

And what do we get from this massive public financing of education? Over three-quarters of all tertiary graduates migrate, taking their state-acquired skills with them. Most of the gunmen delivering an escalating murder rate are secondary-school 'graduates' - or soon to be. Unemployment among the youth cohort of 14-24 is twice the national average. The Jamaican economy and productivity levels within it stubbornly refuse to grow. Roads are in shambles, requiring special additional taxation, and justice is crying out for help. The primary duties of the State are defence, justice and public infrastructure.

The best decider

So students want no questions asked regarding financing for whatever they choose to study; and the Government wants to prioritise areas of study for financing, as reporter Andrew Wildes reminded us last Sunday in this newspaper, "Students speak out against Gov't's plan to regulate SLB funding". But governments are usually pretty bad at manpower planning and projections. The market is actually the best decider. But aided and abetted by much of modern education paid for by the State, both Government and students alike are distrustful of the market.

The only way, for instance, to absorb the masses of pure social sciences and arts graduates - and even management graduates - pouring out of the UWI and elsewhere, is to give them jobs in the public service, which has a long-standing policy of absorbing labour which nobody else wants so as to keep down the unemployment figures.

But the Government now wants to trim the public service! Private enterprise, and even teaching, that handy fall-back, needs relatively few economists, historians, sociologists and literatures-in-English graduates, not to mention international affairs majors. The plain fact is that, historically, going all the way back to ancient times, non-skill liberal arts education was intended primarily to provide the manpower for public administration, and, secondarily, to produce persons for the haute couture cultural expressions of society. And these are very necessary, indeed, but watch the numbers.

People may be surprised that there is also an oversupply of doctors and lawyers. And were it not for the migration door, the oversupply situation would be even worse.

We may have a maldistribution of these high-level professionals, especially between town and country and between state employment and private practice, and, very important, a shortage of support staff to increase their productivity to First-World standards, but not really an undersupply. The highest state subsidy for education goes to doctors. But we are absolutely short of nurses, pharmacists and medical technologists.

Not short of teachers

I am not so sure we are short of teachers. My 'guestimate', is that the overall teacher-to-student ratio at the secondary level is about 1:25. The primary-level ratio, which, pedagogically, should be lower, is higher. But at the secondary level, 1:25 is not bad by even First-World standards. What is bad is distribution geographically, by school type, and by subjects. But considering the blind devotion to 'education', preferential financing for increasing teacher supply is likely to be an instinctive response.

It is this kind of data analysis, plus identification of economic growth sectors and policy projections for economic growth, social policy projections, and so on, which the Government will need before it can begin, even crudely, to project manpower needs as a basis for the allocation of tertiary-education financing. But the market, faults and all, is better.

So how could we let the market do it? At one level, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. The United States, which runs the world's largest system of students paying for higher education, and also the biggest (semi)-market economy in which even bad unemployment levels remain single digit, also runs a Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS). The BLS provides exhaustive data on labour trends and patterns. So, which fields of work are showing the biggest and fastest increases, or declines, in Jamaica? God, He knows! The Government doesn't. The PIOJ has some uselessly lumped categories and doubtful data in these fatties.

To borrow a radical suggestion from the education chapter six of Milton and Rose Friedman's Free to Choose, the Government could stop funding tertiary institutions and fund students by giving them directly their education subsidy to be spent in any approved institution. Subsidies would range from close to 100 per cent for the highest priority disciplines, to a low of perhaps 20 per cent or so for the lowest priority disciplines. The inter-institutional competition for students and their subsidies would work marvels for offering market-relevant courses, providing market-trends information in promotional material, and improving student services! But no government has the nerve for this sensible but radical proposition.

While we wait, Government should ban' its own belly and go back to the idea of the dedicated education tax, purely as an accounting procedure, and earmark a portion of it for progressively topping up the Students' Loan Bureau Fund and bringing down its interest rates. With time, students would be freer and freer to borrow how much they wished for what they wished, but at differential interest rates by priority. Guarantors should be required to start servicing the loan after a maximum 24 months' grace period if the borrower can't or doesn't. That should focus minds on employment prospects after school.

Liberal arts

And what about my beloved liberal arts which is not a hot ticket to jobs, but everyone agrees has a civilising role in education and society? Famous management scholar, Peter Drucker, offers some simple, practical advice: Describing 'management' as the new (integrative) liberal arts, he repeatedly argued in his works for the infusion of the traditional liberal arts into 'useful' education, a process good for the educated person, good for the society - and good for the liberal arts itself. A relatively small number of purists and specialists are required to maintain and transmit the liberal arts.

I have the privilege of teaching MBA students who not only pay for their own education, carefully selecting a good-value school, but are given liberal doses of the liberal arts as part of the value for their money.

Martin Henry is a communications consultant who may be reached at medhen@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.