The Higher Education Students Financing Board (HESFB) has said that they will not give out loans to continuing students this year.
Since 2014, eligibility for the Student Loan Scheme was only open to students joining in their first year of study at eligible universities, who are funded until they complete their studies but in 2021, the board launched the Student Loan opportunity for continuing students.
The Executive Director of the HESFB, Michael Wanyama, said that hundreds of anxious students asked for this loan to help them continue their studies in the face of COVID-19 effects, which have now made it difficult for some of them to pay their tuition.
According to the 2016 Africa Higher Education Student Survey Project, at least 30 percent of all students in Uganda who enroll in various degree programs at different universities either never complete their courses on time or drop out because they are unable to pay the necessary tuition fees.
According to statistics, the board received 3,089 loan requests from students between July 15th and October 15, nevertheless, 672 of them were deemed ineligible, the majority of them being continuing students.
Wanyama said that when the continuing students program was introduced, they were given 500 Million Shillings with the expectation that this sum would rise; double, or even triple this year, but they received nothing in the end.
The State Minister for Higher Education, John Chrysostom Muyingo, also noted that while he sympathizes with the hundreds of students who are on the verge of completely dropping out of school due to lack of tuition, the government is broke, leaving a lot of unfunded priority, like funding these students, on their waiting list.
