Edward Seaga, the former prime minister, who was recently appointed pro-chancellor of the University of Technology (UTech), often makes thoughtful interventions on the subject of education.

He was on to the issue of early childhood education and the need for the upgrading of the island's 'basic' schools long before it became a fashionable topic in Jamaica. He has, for several years, had on the table an interesting proposal, the issuing of special bonds for the funding of the sector, an issue that is now exercising the Government.

On Tuesday, speaking at a luncheon marking his elevation at UTech, Mr Seaga said that tertiary education should be an area of focus by the authorities. He had sound reasons - and not only that a competitive Jamaican economy will require that people are trained at this level, equipped with a mastery of technology.

The former prime minister touched a more obvious, and some would say immediately practical chord. He said unemployment in Jamaica of people with tertiary education was less than one quarter of one per cent. Why not just train them?

There are other obvious questions to be worked through. Of course, with about 15 per cent of the population with some form of tertiary education - which represents a significant advance in the past decade and a half - Jamaica still has a long way to go if it is to match the developed world and be in a position to really compete globally. But as Mr Seaga and others who think about these issues understand, tertiary education sits on a foundation of the primary and secondary systems. And Jamaica is not doing particularly well at those levels.

A significant part of the problem, at least with regard to any strategy for fixing it, is the lack of resources; the insufficiency of cash. Tertiary education, in terms of the gross numbers of students covered, accounts for a relatively small portion of the system. But in the current fiscal year, it accounts for more than 17 per cent of the Government's allocation to the sector. Early childhood education, on the other hand, gets under four per cent. The primary and all-age and junior high system, with more than 285,000 students, got 32 per cent of the budget.

On the face of it, it would be difficult for a government, faced with Jamaica's circumstance - over 40 per cent of the students at grade four lack basic mastery of literacy and numeracy, at the secondary level more than 50 per cent of the those who take CXC math fail and only two-thirds pass at English - to steer money away from these sectors. Which we suspect was the point being made by Andrew Holness, the education minister.

This, of course, does not obviate Mr Seaga's point. Additional new cash may be squeezed to tertiary education, but we would suggest that the immediately important thing is to be more efficient and creative with what is available.

It would be perhaps useful for a review to be conducted of the Students' Loan Bureau to determine whether it is doing the best job at getting loans to students at the best price. And as Patrick Casserly suggested, maybe we can offset loans if tertiary graduates choose to work in the public sector or other earmarked areas of public service.