Students in Universities and Technical Vocational Educational and Training (TVET) institutions will start receiving their loans from today, October 4, 2023, the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) has confirmed.
In a statement released to media houses this evening, HELB Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Charles Ringera said that they have started disbursing tuition loans to Universities and TVET institutions with upkeep loans currently being disbursed through the students’ preferred payment models of either Bank account or HELB Mobile Wallet.
Ringera has urged universities and colleges to allow students to register, as tuition fees to various institutions have also been released and should reflect in the respective bank accounts of the Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) by October 5, 2023.
“HELB has today started the disbursement of tuition loans to Universities and TVET institutions. The upkeep loans for the over 175,000 undergraduate and over 70,000 TVET continuing students under the Old Higher Education Funding Model (OFM) is currently being disbursed to students as per their respective preferred payment channels,” said Ringera in the statement.
He added that students under the newly introduced funding model for both loans and scholarships will start receiving their tuition and upkeep after the set deadline for application dated October 7, 2023.
“For the First-Time students applying for Funding under the New Higher Education Funding Model (NFM) for both loans and scholarships, the deadline for application is October 7, 2023 as per the extension granted by the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Education, Hon. Ezekiel Machogu on September 5, 2023. The processing and disbursement of their Loans and scholarships for both tuition and upkeep will follow shortly after the deadline date of October 7, 2023,” added Ringera.
In the newly funding model which replaced the long-time Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC), students from needy households joining universities will receive government scholarships of up to a maximum of 53 per cent and loans of up to 40 per cent with their Households only paying for 7 per cent of the cost of their University Education.
Those who joined TVETs on the other hand under this category will receive government scholarships of up to a maximum of 50 per cent and 30 per cent in loans, with their Households only paying 20 per cent of the costs.
The less needy students who joined universities will be funded through a government scholarship of up to a maximum of 38 per cent of the cost of the programme, and 55 per cent in form of loans; with their households paying only 7 per cent.
For those who will be joining TVETs, they will be funded 32 per cent for government scholarship, 48 per cent for loans and their households only paying 20 per cent of the costs.
In the new funding framework, funding will be based on four criteria that is choice of the programme, household income band, affirmative performance and government priority areas whereby MTI will be applied to scientifically determine the need levels of students.
By Our Reporter
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