Higher education loan applicants at Helb offices in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE
By OUMA WANZALA, owanzala@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
Students seeking loans from the Higher Education
Loans board (Helb) and whose parents are defaulters will only access the
money once their parents start to repay their loans.
Helb chief executive officer Charles Ringera said a number
of parents who are loan defaulters had stood as guarantors to their
children seeking the loans.
He however said the learners will be awarded the
loans but the transfer of the funds to their accounts will be delayed
until their parents resume payment of the loans.
“We will not deny the students loans since they are
entitled to it but in case of defaulting parents we will demand that
they start to repay their loans or commit as a condition of releasing
funds to their children,” said Mr Ringera.
“Last year, out of 34,000 applicants for loans that
we received, 16,000 parents guaranteed their children, of the 16,000,
we discovered that 6,000 were loan defaulters,” added Mr Ringera.
Helb had earlier said it could not trace about 25,000 past beneficiaries, casting doubts on the agency’s ability to recover billions lent to students.
Those who benefit from Helb loans are expected to start repaying one year after completing studies.
Those who benefit from Helb loans are expected to start repaying one year after completing studies.
The agency relies on employers to provide details
of beneficiaries in their service, making it hard to trace those who do
not find jobs or join the informal sector.
Auditor-General Edward Ouko in March said that Helb was unlikely to recover Sh24.6 billion from past beneficiaries.
Most university students come from poor backgrounds
and require financial assistance to pay tuition fees and for their
upkeep. The loans are given at an interest rate of four per cent per
annum.
Helb has struggled to meet rising financial needs
of students, especially those joining universities, due a funding
shortfall which has continued to grow in the past five years.
The chief executive disclosed that only 76,000 out
of 84,350 students who joined university this month will get loans
starting October with Sh3.1 billion being set aside for freshers.
“The 136,000 continuing students will get about
Sh6.7 billion while the loan recovery will be between Sh2.5 billion to
Sh4 billion and counties will give us Sh300 million,” said Mr Ringera.
He added that so far 35,000 students have put in
their applications online, 26,000 printed their applications while
1,000 submitted their applications ahead of the September 30 deadline.
The freshers have once again failed to get timely loans from helb, marking a turbulent beginning of their studies.
Most universities require full payment of a semester’s fees to
admit the learner and delay in disbursement, therefore, risks forcing
some freshmen to postpone their studies for lack of fees.
Mr Ringera also raised concerns over use of Helb loans by students for betting saying that the practice should be discouraged.
“We have had two incidents that resulted into death and therefore it is an issue that we are concerned about,” said Mr Ringera.
No comments :
Post a Comment