The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) has noted with dismay the failure by the Higher Education Loans and Scholarships Board (HELSB) to award loans to 8,004 eligible first-year students at the University of Zambia UNZA for the 2021/2022 academic year due to budgetary constraints.
ZANEC Executive Director George Hamusunga says 8,000 is a small number and government has no excuse to fail to provide funding especially that these are loans that should be paid back by former beneficiaries for the sole purpose to fund new students.
Mr. Hamusunga has since called upon government through the ministry of education to heighten its loan recovery program from former university students and deal with barriers to the loan facility to allow for new eligible students to have access without fail.
He is of the view that the positives that may be scored by government’s approach of scrapping off school fees at primary and secondary level will be lost if barriers in accessing higher education are not dealt with immediately to enhance value to education through skills post secondary.
Mr. Hamusunga states that higher education is directly related to economic development.
Over the weekend, the higher education loans and scholarships board-HELSB disclosed that only 2,481 students were awarded student loans out of a total of 10,485 applicants who were eligible.
Dismiss them, let someone capable do the job. They want to create ghost students and claim the money for themselves. Vi choseni pamupando.
Why worry, Bally will fix it.