Chronicle Editor
Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
GOVERNMENT is considering setting up a fund to be accessed by higher and tertiary students struggling to provide collateral demanded by financial institutions providing educational loans.
Tertiary students have previously raised concern that they were failing to access student loans as they could not provide the collateral demanded by financial institutions.
In the 2019 national budget presentation, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube allocated $8 million to Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Ministry that will be disbursed by financial institutions without demanding collateral.
In an interview yesterday, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said Government wants students to access loans.
“We are considering insurance or a risk fund for our students. That’s why at some point we were saying we are negotiating with banks so we believe that we are going to use several mechanisms to make sure that we raise guarantees of one sort or another. That’s part of our strategy,” said Prof Murwira.
“The other strategy is for those students who might not be able to provide enough guarantees, we will then advance certain amounts as a guarantee to the bank so that they don’t discard some of our students’ proposals.”
He said Government will finalise the arrangement once the budget is approved.
“It’s not yet finished, it’s really part of a cocktail of strategies that we are trying to use. We await the operationalising of the budget because the budget is not yet operational. As soon as things are operational we would give details on how we are going to take the issue forward,” he said.
Due to the prevailing economic situation in the country, most students are struggling to pay fees, resulting in some of them deferring their studies.
– @nqotshili
derick.khumalo