The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A total of 1,700 students who completed school in the academic year 2018/2019 are expected to start paying back loans extended to them by the government to pursue University education.
Micheal Wanyama, the Executive Director of the Higher Education Students’ Financing Board revealed this in an interview this morning that the grace period of one year that they were given to settle in the job market has since elapsed.
Wanyama says that they have already set up a unit that is supposed to trace whoever is supposed to pay and the team started off by updating their data to establish the beneficiaries current addresses and job status.
According to Wanyama, every beneficiary has an obligation to keep informing the board of their whereabouts or the money that they are earning, which information is then used to determine the percentage that they should be paying up periodically.
However, two beneficiaries that the Uganda Radio Network spoke to on condition of anonymity said they are not yet able to pay because they have never secured employment. But, Wanyama says the board is aware of such exceptions and can only be accepted after thorough verifications that include visiting the addresses that the applicant put in addition to contacting authorities there.
The students’ loan scheme started dispensing funds to needy students pursuing science courses in 10 universities around the country in 2014 but has since moved to 20 universities with the latest addition being ISBAT University.
Several changes have since been made to the scheme that started as purely targeting those pursuing science courses. Wanyama says they are now extending loans to some offering humanities but this category only targets Persons with physical disabilities (PWDs).
He said 20 students with disabilities have already applied for the loan. With the increase in the number of applicants and many of them being left out for instance last year when they only extended loans to 2,000 of the 7,000 applicants, sections of the public including members of parliament questioned the eligibility criteria citing influence peddling.
Wanyama explains that there are nine parameters in their scorecard to determine whether one qualifies where the orphanage parameter gets the biggest weight. Others like the kind of schools they went to, parent’s educational background, the number of siblings they have and social-economic status are also considered. For him, the scorecard is very transparent that everyone who is admitted to a tertiary institution can be applied.
Since it started the scheme has benefited 10,041 students. Wanyama says a new call is about to be made and that the plan is to have 3000 beneficiaries this year. To be able to afford this, he said, they have a budget proposal of Shs30billion.
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