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More than 140,000 students in public universities and technical and vocational education training (TVET) are going to miss higher education funding loans. This comes after the Higher Educational Loans Board said it ran out of cash subjecting these students to a hard time raising their tertiary education fees. This means that these students are likely to miss pursuing their desired courses should they be unable to raise the required fees.
Unfortunately, HELB ran out of cash at a time when the tuition and accommodation fees for various universities across the country have been rising. Additionally, given the hard economic times and deteriorating inflation, these students will have to toil even harder to raise their education fees. The situation threatens to derails the Government’s own target of ensuring 100% transition of qualified students from secondary education to tertiary institutions.
However, On Wednesday, HELB told Parliament that students might have to wait until the Treasury releases Kshs. 5.7 billion after the Kshs. 4.5-billion budget HELB had presented to Treasury ran out.
“Currently we have 140,000 students in TVET and universities that we have not been able to fund to the tune of Kshs. 5.7 billion because we have run out of the budget that we had presented to Treasury of Kshs. 4.5 billion,” said HELB chief executive Charles Ringera.
Read: President William Ruto To Set Up New Funding Body Ahead Of HELB Scrap Off
Ideally, successful students receive an amount between Kshs. 35,000 to Kshs. 60,000 with Kshs 8,000 of the amount sent directly to the university as tuition fees in two equal payments.
Until the release of the Kshs 5.7 billion by the Treasury, students, who are mostly first years, will have to buckle up for hard times in campus. The Government will need to find a way of ensuring HELB does not fail in the delivery of its mandate.
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