Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) has revealed that a sum of Ksh 210 billion will be required for university financing by 2028 under the new student-centered model.
The agency Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Charles Ringera while speaking in a media session on university funding last week said that the loan component will require at least Ksh 145 billion while scholarships will need at least Ksh 75 billion to be able to fund students in tertiary institutions.
“Small simulation numbers that we have done show that by 2028 through this model, university financing will require Ksh 145 billion from loans only. Scholarships will be looking at another around Ksh 75 billion so we are talking about Ksh 210 billion as the amount that will be required,” Ringera said.
To achieve sustainability, he said they have been looking for partnership funds through donors, foundations, individual corporate funders and counties among other stakeholders.
“The sustainability of this new funding model is to have big entities that can be able to raise money outside of the Exchequer, which can be able to support the programme. In this simulation, I have looked at the candidature of Form Fours and how they are transiting to higher education and also the expansion of TVET. These are important numbers for planners of the country to understand what this model will be like so that we can start looking at sustainability,” the CEO explained.
He added that in the future they are looking to add laptops in addition to the loan components which are; tuition, books and stationery for the students, accommodation and subsistence upkeep allowance.
“There is an emerging issue post-Covid-19, which is the laptops. We are discussing with World Bank to test a device loan programme because the admission letters you have seen most of them are saying that the students should come with a laptop. In most universities, laptops are one of the key components and we are thinking of how to be able to cater for these as they get to universities,” he explained.
Last year, HELB had an allocation of Ksh 11 billion, recovered about Ksh4.8 billion and the overall disbursed about Ksh14.9 billion to at least 800,000 students in TVET institutions and universities.
For this financial year, the available funding for institutions of higher learning is Ksh27.6 billion from HELB, another Ksh 19.6 billion from the Universities Fund and Ksh4.6 billion from TVET.
By Vostine Ratemo
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