Student-loan shame exposes a national flaw

It’s a common problem everywhere for people to be defaulting on their loan repayments, but in Thailand, the issue of the hour probably reflects a larger worry. 
A teacher has landed in immense legal trouble after many of the 
students for whom she served as loan guarantor defaulted. Her plight has once again brought to the surface a lingering problem concerning unpaid student loans and unfulfilled 
scholarship obligations. It’s an issue that is highlighting a shameful national trait.
Thousands of Thais who received loans towards the cost of their 
education have defaulted not because they lacked the money to repay them but because defaulting is just so commonly done. 
It matters not how much or how little they owe or how practical their instalment-payment arrangements are. They simply never intended to respect the terms of their loan 
contracts. 
Many think repaying their loans would be foolish when so many 
others ignore the debt and get away with it.
Doing wrong because others are doing it has become something of a norm in Thailand, encompassing all sectors of society. Commuters bribe traffic police because “everyone else” does. 
Parents offer school headmasters tea money to secure their children’s admission, convinced that following the crowd is the only way to get in the door. Politicians caught with their hands in the cookie jar ask why they’re being singled out for 
persecution when so many others are doing the same. 
Thailand’s political divide has resulted in no small measure from this attitude. Blaming someone else is easy and can blur the issue and deflect criticism. 
The student loan shame simply confirms how widespread this attitude is – “I’m doing it because others are doing it.” If the loans are enormous and the repayment arrangements punitive, there might be room for sympathy. 
In the case of teacher Vipa Banyen, she signed off on loans issued to 60 students in 1998 and 1999, each amounting to a little over Bt10,000. Twenty-three students subsequently defaulted.
This widely shared attitude is shaking state scholarship funds, with recipients failing to fulfil obligations after benefiting from financial assistance. There are ways to get around the contracts, including big payoffs, and the root of the backtracking is more or less the mindset that “With others not fulfilling the obligations, why should I?”
It would be harsh to describe the defaulting as ingratitude, though. Most likely, non-payment resulted from a prevailing trait that has been passed along through the decades. Defaulting debtors honestly do not see their decision as showing a lack of integrity. They simply consider it common.
It is, nevertheless, a woeful trait. Children should be taught to honour any agreement into which they enter, no matter how insignificant. If Vipa’s students flunked out on financial contracts worth a mere Bt10,000, why should they be expected to honour much greater responsibilities later in life?
Vipa’s trouble is just the tip of the iceberg – the money lost and the hardships that befall disappointed guarantors. What’s more worrisome is that this shoddy national habit is causing all kinds of problems, in schools, in social equality and in politics. Unless we as a people become more honest, matters will only get worse.