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Students` Loan Board issues new criteria
2007-05-26 09:55:49
By Peter Tindwa
The Higher Education Students` Loans Board (HELSB) yesterday issued new criteria and guidelines for 2007/8 loan applications in a drive to address long-standing students` complaints centered on 60 per cent government sponsorship.
The board, which has been under students` pressure since its inception in 2005, has now been forced to categorize percentages of scholarship for eligible students-A (100 per cent), B (80 per cent), C (60 per cent), D (40 per cent), E 20 (per cent) and F (0 per cent).
Eligible loan applicants, under the new guidelines, will be receiving loans on the basis of categories-A up to F.
The percentage of such financial assistance will differ from one student to another, depending on the socio-economic status of students, parents or guardians.
``The amount of loan to be awarded to each individual student shall depend on means testing results as well as the approved upper loan limit for each item,`` according to the guidelines issued yesterday.
``Therefore 100 per cent shall mean full loan whereas 0 per cent shall mean no loan,`` added the statement.
The board will also provide loans for meals and accommodation at the rate of 3,500 per day of theoretical instruction in the academic year.
The board will provide 100 per cent loan for research in selected fields-medicine, pharmacy, engineering, architecture, agriculture and sciences, based on the rates applicable at the public institutions.
Qualified students are required to forward their applications in the prescribed form which when approved by the board shall form the basis of the loan contract, to be known as the ``students loan agreement`` between the applicant and the board.
Despite of the board`s efforts of drawing up new guidelines, students complained yesterday that they have not received detailed information on the new guidelines and criteria, rising fear that the implementation may be difficult.
Students also blamed the board for coming up with changes without involving them as key stakeholders.
In an exclusive interview with The Guardian, Dar es Salaam University Students Organization (DARUSO) President Deo Daudi said: ``My office is yet to receive any official details regarding the newly introduced loan percentages rates.``
``Our expectation is that the board will involve all stakeholders, students included, in drawing up new guidelines and criteria for granting students loans for the 2007/2008 academic year,`` he added.
Daruso said the student body would not issue an official stance, pending implementation of the new students` loans` guidelines and criteria.
The students` organization, however, has categorically stressed that the newly introduced criteria and guidelines for granting students` loans have nothing to do with last month`s class boycott.
Undergraduate students of University of Dar es Salaam staged a two day class boycott in April to press the government into providing 100 per cent loan instead of 60 per cent.
This prompted the university management to suspend the students. They were reinstated early this month after the management gave them to some conditions to fulfill.
It is not clear so far if the new percentage rates, guidelines and criteria for student loan applications released by the board, would halt students` crisis centred mainly on demanding 100 per cent government sponsorship.
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