SUDENTS ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH THE RELEASED HELB LOAN

STUDENTS COMPLAIN OVER LATEST RELEASED HELB LOAN

By Maritim Kipngetich

There are numerous complaints from students over the latest released educational funds by Higher Education Loans Board (Helb).

The students are not satisfied with the amount given to them by the board saying that they have many needs and the paltry loans allocated to them are not enough to cater for their daily expenses.

Many students were expecting to be given sh60, 000 as the highest amount and sh37, 000 as the lowest amount as it normally happens, but this was never the case since the board gave sh50, 000 to the highest beneficiary and sh35, 000 to the lowest beneficiary.

Despite low allocation of funds, first time applicants, who are mainly first years who joined various universities in September last year, had to survive without loan for a whole semester.

Helb CEO Charles Ringera (second left)

Many students also are currently queuing at the Helb headquarter to present complaints.  Some are complaining that they have never received any communication from Helb officials and they fear that they may not be given the funds.

Diana Chepkemoi is a first year student at the Co-oporative University College of Kenya and she said she was called to Helb headquarter, Nairobi, to correct her application form in November last year, but even after doing so she is not among the beneficiaries.

Chepkemoi said she has taken complaint to Helb offices in order to be given the funds.

“I have gone for inquiry and they said they are yet to process my application. But the problem is, students we applied together have been given funds so I wonder what happened to mine,” she says.

Chepkemoi’s story is all too familiar among many students emanating from different universities across the country.

Some students said they were told since they applied loan when the system (Helb application website) was on trial, their forms have to wait a little longer so that they can be processed.

Many inquiries were posted by students in the Helb Facebook page and some students were told their applications were not successful and they have to write an appeal or review to Helb as soon as it is available in the website.

Helb says the near-doubling of first-time applications to 110,000 has seen the agency reduce the maximum loan amount to Sh50, 000 from Sh60, 000 per academic year.
“The unprecedented number of applicants caught us off-guard; we had to allocate funds to a larger number of students than we had anticipated,” says Charles Ringera, the Helb chief executive officer.
Mr Ringera says last year’s re-basing of the economy, which showed that Kenya is now a middle-income country with a per capita income of Sh113,386 ($1,246), also indicates that students generally require less support from the State to finance their university education than they did previously.
“The system we use to calculate and allocate loans factors in the income of a beneficiary’s parents or guardians. Since the economy was rebased, their improved earnings have been captured by the system.” He says.