Loans body in drive to attract more student applicants

Tanzania’s Higher Education Students' Loans Board (HESLB) is gearing up to provide more loans and scholarships for higher education students as it increases its budget allocation and improves awareness and conditions for beneficiaries. However, concerns have been raised about the red tape attached to meeting some of the criteria.

Budget and scholarships allocations to HESLB will increase to TZS450 billion (US$196 million) for the next fiscal year which starts on 1 July, up from TZS427.5 billion in 2018-19. Student beneficiaries are expected to increase by 5,200 to a total of 128,285.

To achieve this increase, HESLB has embarked upon an awareness drive but has also made some changes to the application process and the criteria, the latter aimed at increasing applications from poorer students.

Two weeks have been provided for prospective applicants to study the application guidelines and organise all the required documentation before embarking on the online application, said Abdul-Razaq Badru, HESLB executive director.

This is in the hope of reducing the number of applicants who make mistakes in their applications, Badru said. Last year, a total of 9,000 out of 57,539 students who qualified for loans filled in their application forms incorrectly.

HESLB has also prepared a handbook and HESLB staff visited 81 secondary schools in 17 regions of Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar and met about 27,500 students who were informed about the qualifications and procedures.

The application window opened on 15 June and will run until 15 August.

New eligibility rules

HESLB has pushed the age limit for eligibility for loans to 35 years (up from 33 years), and has extended the number of years from three to five in which students can apply for university loans after completion of Sixth Form or diploma studies.

All loan applications are to be made online through the Online Loan Application and Management System (OLAMS), according to a notice on the HESLB website.

However, there are also stringent rules regarding certification and authenticity of documents proving eligibility.

This year, new applicants will have to ensure that their birth certificates are certified by the Registration, Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency (RITA) in Tanzania mainland, and Zanzibar Civil Status Registration Agency (ZCSRA) or designated officers to ascertain their validity. For Tanzania and Zanzibar citizens born outside the country, birth certificates have to be certified by the respective embassies of those countries in Tanzania.

Orphaned applicants who fall into the needy category will be required to have copies of death certificates of their parents, which will be verified by RITA or ZCSRA.

Disabled applicants need to prove their disability with certified copies by the District Medical Officer or Regional Medical Officer, while applicants with poor parents with a disability will also have to be certified by the District Medical Officer, Regional Medical Officer or any entity authorised to certify such cases.

Poor applicants who qualified for sponsorship in the past will have to prove they are from lower income households or marginalised communities.

Onerous red tape

A HESLB official said certification guards against forged documents being presented by applicants, but Charles Mgomella, a prospective student applicant, told University World News that some of the certification requirements are too stringent and fulfilling them may be onerous for poor students.

“Travelling to all these offices to certify the documents will be very expensive and what happens if the embassy of the country in which the student was born is not in Tanzania and what about foreign students whose parents died abroad?” Mgomella said.

The guidelines also require that if a student is reapplying for a loan after dropping out of a programme, the loan-seeker must repay at least 25% of their previous loan before applying. However, the repayment does not guarantee a new loan allocation.

HESLB was established by Act No 9 of 2004 and became effective in July 2005. HESLB is mandated , among other things, to issue loans and-or grants to needy and eligible students.

In November last year, parliament amended the HESLB Act of 2004, revising the monthly deductions from salaries to 15% from 8% for loan beneficiaries. Since its implementation in January, loan recovery rates have improved to 60%. The government also instituted new technology to trace defaulters.