HESLB: Over 3,900 eligible applicants to miss loans

Dar es Salaam. Over 3,900 qualified loan applicants for higher learning this year will not get funds from the government due to insufficient budget and priority on courses, the Higher Learning Students’ Loans Board (HESLB) announced yesterday. HESLB Acting Executive director, Mr Asangye Bangu, told journalists at the Board’s headquarters in Dar es Salaam that out of 33,050 applicants, who met set criteria for acquiring loans for the 2012/2013 academic year; only 29,113 – 9,088 females (31.94 per cent) and 19,366 males (68.06 per cent), would get the loans. However, he said, out of 29,113 successful applicants, the Board has so far completed allocating the loans to 28,454, and the rest, 659 applicants, would receive them later after mistakes in their applications. He said the applicants have been given 14 days to make the corrections. Mr Bangu said a total of 49,895 applicants had sought the loans this year. “After assessing names of qualified applicants, we had to scrap some of them due to the meagre budget and priorities on courses,” he said. He noted that the issue of insufficient budget was still a challenge to the Board, as the number of applicants was high. Priorities on courses, as agreed upon by authorities, include medical science, teaching science, mathematics, construction and irrigation engineering. For this year, the government has allocated Sh345 billion for higher learning students’ loans, up from Sh317.8 billion last year. Also, the number of beneficiaries has increased by about 12 per cent. Last year only 26,000 applicants got loans. He assured that the applicants would get the loans at the time of commencement of their studies. Successful applicants include 113 females and 320 males enrolled in agricultural science courses, 23 females and 78 males selected to pursue wildlife science courses. Also, Mr Bangu informed that 4,548 female and 8,456 successful applicants would study education courses, 43 females and 199 males who would take mathematics teaching, and 492 females and 1654 males enrolled to pursue science subjects teaching. The Board acting chief said 398 female and 1,971 male applicants would pursue engineering courses, while 514 females and 1,069 males would take medicine courses. The HESLB announcement came a day after it allayed fears amongst applicants over delays in disbursing loans for this year. Most universities are expected to open for next academic year early next month. The move comes in the wake of widespread worries that most legible applicants would miss loans from the government this year. However, HESLB Public Relations officer Veneranda Malima told The Citizen that the board was on schedule in loans processing and disbursement. By Bernard Lugongo The Citizen Reporter