In one week’s time, Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) will be releasing cash for the 64,700 students out of the 69,152 who qualified to join both public and private universities. This will see 4451 students missing out on the loan, with helb claiming that it had budgeted for the 64,700 fresh students who have already started reporting to their respective institutions.
According to Helb chief executive officer Charles Ringera , the applications which ended last month recorded 89,900 online applications with 63,000 forms having been printed and 32,000 forms submitted to their offices. Ringera said that funding starts 15th of September for the verified forms urging those who have not yet submitted their forms to do so in the various huduma centers across the country.
According to the CEO, the Afya elimu fund for Continuing nursing students will kick off on the 15th of September while that of first time applicants is still ongoing. Technical and Vocational Education Training TVET is still on till the 31st of October.
Budget
The CEO noted that following the tight budget by the National Treasury, fresh students budget will be sh. 2.8 billion while those 164,000 continuing students will get 6.9 billion. The 4000 postgraduate students will take sh. 400 million and that among the 164,000 continuing students 90,000 has already been paid which totals to sh. 1.9 billion. The whole budget for this financial year that will be used to fund students is sh. 10.1 billion.
Access to funds.
Students are therefore required to have smart cards in order to access the funds. The cards are expected to ensure effective and efficient management of funds invested in the education sector by the government, and also help in timely disbursement of loans and eliminate errors encountered in the past such as wrong bank information. Universities had been earlier directed to ensure that all students have the cards by September.
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Duncan Mwenda
Check for my helb status since not yet disbursed. My Identification number is 33031212