Stu­dent Loan Scheme In Ugx 5bn Deficit

The Higher Ed­u­ca­tion Stu­dents Fi­nanc­ing Board (HESFB) is faced with a Ugx 5 bil­lion fi­nan­cial short­age, which could af­fect ad­mis­sion of new stu­dents to dif­fer­ent uni­ver­si­ties.

The board which was set up in 2014 has been charged with pro­vid­ing loans and schol­ar­ships to bril­liant and needy stu­dents, with the funds cov­er­ing tu­ition fees, re­search and func­tional fees.

Ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cials from HESFB, gov­ern­ment is yet to re­lease the funds re­quired to fa­cil­i­tate new students join­ing the 6 pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties and se­lected char­tered pri­vate uni­ver­si­ties in the 2017/​2018 aca­d­e­mic year.

Rev. Fr. Prof. Cal­listo Locheng, HESFB board chair­man re­vealed to leg­is­la­tors on the com­mit­tee that govern­ment is yet to re­lease Ugx 5.6 bil­lion re­quired to pro­vide loans to new stu­dents join­ing the nine gov­ern­ment uni­ver­si­ties and other char­tered pri­vate uni­ver­si­ties in the 2017/​2018 aca­d­e­mic year.

Locheng fur­ther re­vealed that Ugx 6 bil­lion has also not been re­leased to fa­cil­i­tate pay­ments for continu­ing stu­dents. He said if the money is not re­leased soon, the board will be un­able to call for applica­tions for new stu­dents to ap­ply for the loans and schol­ar­ships.

Michael Wanyama, the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of HESFB told the MPs that while the scheme pro­vides funding to stu­dents for tu­ition and func­tional fees, there is no pro­vi­sion for ac­com­mo­da­tion and food.

Wanyama lamented that this has forced some stu­dents, es­pe­cially those from ex­tremely poor fam­i­lies, to drop out of school.

State Min­is­ter in charge of Higher Ed­u­ca­tion, Dr. Chrysos­tom Muyingo told the com­mit­tee that government is seek­ing for the money to fund the new stu­dents.

Muyingo also scoffed at con­cerns by some leg­is­la­tors, in­clud­ing Ja­cob Opolot and Joseph Ssewungu, on the un­fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of the loans. While the MPs said the most vul­ner­a­ble dis­tricts are get­ting few slots com­pared to fairly de­vel­oped ar­eas, Muyingo said the loans are given on ba­sis of merit.

Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the board, at least 3,799 stu­dents have so far ben­e­fited from the scheme.

In the 2014/​2015 fi­nan­cial year, 1,201 out of 2,125 ap­pli­cants were awarded the loans. In the 2015/​2016 fi­nan­cial year, 1,273 out of 4,399 ap­pli­cants were awarded while in the 2016/​2017 fi­nan­cial year, 1,325 out of 3,762 ap­pli­cants were awarded.