1,834 students awarded study loans by Gov't

EDUCATION

KAMPALA - A total of 1,834 students have been awarded study loans by Government under the Students' Loan Scheme for the academic year 2019/2020.

Of this statistic, 1,216 are male, which is 66% of the successul applicants.

Meanwhile, the applications of thousands other students were unsuccessful.

While releasing the beneficiaries list at the Uganda Media Centre on Tuesday, State minister for higher education Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo told reporters that funding of the student loans fund will increase, considering that there are more higher learning institutions.

He also said more money was allocated to the Higher Education Students' Financing Board this time around.

"The Government of Uganda over the years has been increasing the budget of the board. In the financial year 2019/20, Government allocated an additional resource of sh2.4b, bringing the total budget to sh30.182b and this has enabled the board to award loans to 1,834 students," said the minister.

The board's chairperson, Prof. Callisto Locheng, thanked the Government, education ministry, partners, management and staff for their support in increasing access to higher education in the country.

Muyingo says funding of the students' loan scheme will increase. (Credit: Sylvia Katushabe)

Muyingo said for the academic year 2019/2020, the board received 7,310 applications, and of the processed 4,726 applications, 895 wanted support to pursue diploma programmes.

Here, 370 have been awarded loans, of which 249 are male.

Some of those who missed out on the loans failed to beat the deadline while others submitted incomplete application forms.

Other hopefuls were rejected because of unaccredited programmes, unapproved higher education institutions by the board as well as unapproved programmes by the board.

Generally, Makerere University had the most number of successful applicants (327).

Kyambogo University (294), Bishop Stuart University (181), Mbarara University of Science & Technology (174), Busitema University (139) and Ndejje University (126) also ranked high.

Below is the list of the number of successful applicants by institution: