KAMPALA — The Higher Education Students’ Financing Board (HESFB) today released the list of the 7th Cohort of the successful Students’ Loan Scheme applicants for the academic year 2020/21 at the Uganda Media Centre.
Officiating at the release ceremony, the State Minister for Higher Education, Hon. Dr. John Chrysestom Muyingo said that Government is aware of the increased demand for student loans and promised that the Ministry of Education and Sports will extend a proposal to parliament to increase funding to ensure more students gain access.
According to the circulated Loan Award Report, the Board received a total of 5,537 loan applications and awarded loans to 1,113 students representing a success rate of 20%. Of these, 617 are male while 496 are female. Degree applicants take the lion share with 1,004 successful beneficiaries, while 109 were awarded to undertake diploma
This year also saw the highest number of successful Applicants with Disabilities (PwDs) with 24 being awarded loans and the highest gender parity with 44.6% of the successful beneficiaries being female. The total number of Loan Scheme beneficiaries has now hit 11,154.
Following the initial Call for Applications on 15th June, 2020 and ending on 31st July 2020, the Board extended the deadline three (3) times to cover the month of August, September and the final deadline of October 15th 2020 for degree applicants and October 31st, 2020 for diploma applicants. This was to cater for the delayed release/confirmation of admissions by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) whose operations were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
