First year students yet to receive Helb loans (Kenya)

First year students yet to receive Helb loans (Kenya)

 has helb been disbursed into student's account today 23/09/2016 ? - Students who joined public universities for their first year of study in September are yet to receive funding from the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) halfway through the academic year.

Helb chief executive Charles Ringera said the Treasury delayed to release cash for the students’ upkeep and for tuition fees causing “cash flow challenges.”

The freshmen had been promised the cash by November, contrary to the normal arrangement where Helb has been channelling funds to students’ bank accounts in the first month of their arrival at university.

The Treasury has, in the year starting July, experienced a cash crunch due to below-target revenues, reluctance to borrow in the domestic market and high debt payments, which have stalled essential services and projects.

“We got our first tranche of capitation from the Treasury in October that catered for continuing students but the second disbursement meant for freshers was delayed,” said Mr Ringera.

“First year students will start getting their cash in the second week of January totalling Sh2.4 billion,” added Mr Ringera on condition that the Treasury releases cash next week.

Helb had in July indicated that half of the 67,124 new students who joined public universities from September would miss out on the critical funding due to a Sh2 billion funding shortfall.

This came after the Treasury rejected the agency’s request for an additional Sh2 billion besides the Sh7.5 billion it was allocated for the fiscal year that started in July.

The additional funds were to be made through a supplementary budget. Continuing students need Sh6 billion in the current financial year while freshers require Sh2.7 billion, Mr Ringera said earlier.

Most government-sponsored students come from poor backgrounds and require financial assistance to pay their tuition fees and for upkeep. The cash delay means most of them have been forced to shoulder the burden of paying for campus expenses.

Freshmen who missed university housing have to source for extra funds to rent houses or hostels in the surrounding neighbourhoods. University hostel charges range from Sh3,000 per semester while private hostels charge an average of Sh7,000 per month. Students also have to pay full fees before universities allow them to sit for exams.

Mr Ringera said that Helb intervened by asking universities to allow freshers with fees arrears to sit for their end of first semester exams on the promise of paying in January.

The first year students sat for their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams in 2014 and were admitted under the accelerated intake plan — where learners join universities nine months after leaving high school.

Previously, students joined universities nearly two years after the secondary exams. There has been a sharp rise in enrolment of students in public universities, straining resources at the institutions and loans agency, whose allocation from the Treasury has not kept pace with the intake rise.

The number of government-sponsored freshers has nearly tripled in the last five years from 24,221 in 2010 to this year’s 67,124. Similarly, the number of public universities has grown to 22 from seven institutions in 2007.



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First year students yet to receive Helb loans (Kenya)