By Vostine Ratemo
A total of 140, 000 students in both Public Universities and Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) institutions have missed the state loans from the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) after the agency ran out of cash.
“Currently we have 140, 000 students in TVETs and universities that we have not been able to fund to the tune of Sh 5.7 billion because we have run out of the budget that we had presented to Treasury of Sh 4.5 Billion,” said Helb Chief Executive Officer, Charles Ringera.
The 140,000 students are almost double the 75,000 students that the agency could not fund last year when treasury delayed disbursements of the required Sh 3 billion.
Mr Ringera also noted that the move to plug the current financial deficit through a supplementary budget was declined as in this financial year, the agency was allocated Sh 14.8 billion to fund students based on their economic backgrounds.
Loan defaulters who are the former students have weakened HELB’s ability to support the TVET and universities, prompting allocation cuts and increased reliance on the Treasury.
As at 2020, more than 100, 000 former university students had defaulted on their HELB loans.
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