Loans complaints window to open soon amid outcries

HESLB executive director Abdul-Razaq Badru

By Jacob Mosenda

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Dar es Salaam. The Higher Education Students Loans Board (Heslb) yesterday announced it would open a 14-day appeals window to attend to over 4,500 first-year

students including those dissatisfied with their loan rates to apply for additional funding for the 2021/22 academic year.

The window, which is scheduled to be opened on November 6, 2021 and close November 20, 2021 will enable the board to reach about 70,000 students as beneficiaries of Higher Education loans.

Heslb also said at a media briefing that it plans to fund no less than 100,000 continuing students, a number that will reach the funding target of nearly 170,000 students for this academic year (2021/22).

“This large number comes following the year of goodwill after the government increased the loans budget by 21 percent.

“Our aim is to ensure that all underprivileged and eligible students get these loans for their studies,” said Heslb executive director, Mr Abdul-Razaq Badru.

However, following in flowing of complaints by some students about loan amounts allocated to them, claiming that these would not help them meet their university studies requirements, the board has asked them to utilize the appeal period by sending their complaints for sorting out.

“We will open the appeal window to provide opportunities for students who are dissatisfied with current loan rates to submit applications for additional funding,” said Mr Badru, calling upon those whose applications were incomplete or had other defects to rectify during the window.

Announcing the fourth batch of 5,003 first-year students who were allocated loans worth Sh11.6 billion, Badru said that as of yesterday, the number of first-year beneficiaries of loans had reached 65,359 which were allocated loans worth Sh168.9 billion.

He said among the beneficiaries, 1,133 are orphans who lost both parents; 9,450 who lost one parent; 198 are students with disabilities; 2,919 were funded by various institutions in their secondary studies; 51,559 come from poor households.

“With these figures, you will see that the government’s commitment to empowering young people from poor households is evident,” said Mr Badru, adding that 41 percent of the 65,359 beneficiaries were girls, while and 59 percent were men.

Meanwhile, Badru said Heslb is finalizing the payment of 74, 440 students who are beneficiaries continuing their studies after receiving their examination results confirming that they have successfully continued their studies.

“We have more than 98,000 beneficiaries who are continuing their studies and to date (yesterday) we have received the results of the 74,440 students who passed and we will start sending money tomorrow (today),” said Mr Badru.