It is generally accepted that the purpose of setting up national governments is to have machinery that will cater for the welfare of the citizens. The authorities in Tanzania obviously agree with this as this report shows. The Higher Education Students’ Loans Board, HESLB, in Tanzania, has dished out another 9.6bn/-, specifically to benefit 2,679 students who had lodged appeals for a review of their plight when they were left out during the first round.
In a statement issued last week and signed by the Managing Director, Mr. Abdul-Razaq Badru, this second serving goes to 1,847 first-year students (6.84bn/) while the rest of the ‘boom’ will benefit 832 senior colleagues. The statement also says the continuing students were on private sponsorships. “We have also managed to offer loans amounting to 2.76bn/- to 832 continuing students who were not covered in previous academic years,” it says, in part.
The board asked stakeholders, including the students themselves to visit its website (www.heslb.go.tz) for further information. The funds have since been credited to the respective college accounts.
With this second disbursement, the total number of first year students who have so far received loans for the 2017/18 academic year now stands at 33,200. On students who complained over their loans being deposited with the universities to which they were not enrolled, the board owned the ‘mishap’ and said it would recall’ then redirect the money, to the correct institutions.
However, the HESLB made it clear that recalling and depositing the loans to the students’ college emerged after the applicants themselves made their first choice selection of the college and then changed their minds later by choosing other colleges, resulting in double enrollment.
Concerning the loans to Master’s degree and Ph.D. candidates, the HESLB said it has issued loans amounting to 441.4 million to 45 of them in the 2017/18 academic year. The loans, according to the HELSB, are offered to academicians to build capacity to the colleges under a special arrangement between the respective colleges and the board.
A report from Dar-Es-Salaam says the mood of students in university campuses across the country has been upbeat since the Education Ministry and the HELSB made the issue of loans disbursement public.
