First-year loans help some, but many still in need of aid

Zambia’s Higher Education Loans and Scholarship Board (HELSB) has set aside ZMW22 million (US$1.2 million) from loan recoveries to assist first-year students at seven universities. The students should have applied before the academic year opens in mid-February 2022.

HELSB Chief Executive Officer Irene Chirwa said the disbursement of the loans, which goes only to public institutions, will be done with guidance from the ministry of education.

According to Chirwa, the student loans have been offered to students at the University of Zambia (UNZA), Copperbelt University, Kapasa Makasa University, Mulungushi University, Mukuba University, Kwame Nkrumah University and Chalimbana University.

Although several institutions will receive loan money for their beginner students, the University of Zambia will receive the biggest allocation.

A total of 2,481 eligible first-year students (scoring at least five or six points, or 50%-59% in their grade 12 examinations) will be supported at UNZA in the current academic year.

Chiselwa Kawanda, the HELSB senior corporate communications officer, said the board received 10,682 applications – 6,150 were from men (58%) and 4,532 from women (42%). Of the total number received, 10,485 applicants were eligible for a student loan, while 197 were not.

Some applications were ineligible because they had completed grade 12 (the final year of school) before 2017, did not attach some of the required documents, had already been awarded student loans at other universities, or were not Zambians.

Of the successful applicants, 54% were male and 46% female, while 42% were from rural districts and 58% from urban districts. All the 39 applicants living with disabilities had been awarded a loan, Kawanda said.

However, the awarding of a substantial portion of the loans to UNZA students has led to complaints from students at other higher and tertiary education institutions, such as the Livingstone Institute of Business and Engineering Studies (LIBES), who feel left out.

However, although students at LIBES feel disadvantages, Ignatius Lubinda, the principal of LIBES, says he was grateful for the scholarships to 284 students out of the 650 who had applied for scholarships on various programmes.

UNZA Student Union President Elias Gabriel Banda pointed out that all Zambian citizens are eligible to apply for such loans and that, out of the more than 10,000 UNZA students who were eligible for these loans, only about 2,100 were successful, leaving about 80% with having to find other means of financing their studies.

This was confirmed by Kawanda. She said that more than 8,000 eligible students at the University of Zambia were not awarded student loans for the 2021-22 academic year due to budget constraints.