Private sector advised to step in and fund education

By Devota Mwachang`a

Prof Sylvia Temu, director of higher education in Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT)

Private sector has been called upon to chip in and invest in education by providing loans to higher education students in order to increase the number of scholars accessing loans.

Currently the gross enrollment ratio for higher education students in universities in the country is three percent.

This was said at the weekend by Prof Sylvia Temu, director of higher education in Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT), during the launch of Global Education Link (GEL)’s school fees loan programme
“As MoEVT, we are keen to implement programmes that aim at improving our education but fail to do so,” she said.

“It is high time the private sector and institutions thought of providing loans to empower more students get higher education,” he said.

Prof Temu said the government recognises the contribution of financial institutions to national development currently standing at 10 percent to the GDP.
She congratulated the Bank of Africa (BOA) for cooperating with GEL to ensure Tanzanians get quality higher education overseas.

GEL managing director Abdulmalik Mollel said by starting GEL has allocated about 40bn/- for higher learning students’ loans in phase I and at least 3,000 students are targeted as the first beneficiaries.

Mollel said in the first intake of the loan programme, students will be taken to only five countries including UK, India, Malaysia, Ukraine, China and the US because the system of education in those countries will allow GEL to monitor the students closely as one of its major responsibilities.

“After I realised that the problem with most parents and guardians is lack of loans for their children’s studies, we decided to invite them. However, they are required to deposit an initial profit of at least 30 percent and 50 percent of the payments (tuition fees, accommodation and other living expenses) required after they had done online application,” he said.

He said apart from the new loans programme, GEL provides career guidance, course selection, college and university selection, admission processing, student visa processing, flight arrangements and airport transport and accommodation arrangements.

Tanzania Commission of Universities (TCU) acting executive secretary Magishi Mgasa applauded GEL’s initiatives, saying the TCU’s responsibility is to verify the universities if they are recognized by the country’s system and recommend them for the students to join.

“We can’t issue a ‘no objection letter’ to allow students to go abroad without being satisfied ourselves with the universities in which our children opt to study,” said Mgasa. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN