President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration has run broke and is unable to fund the education of over 95, 000 university and college students depending on the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB).
The student loans board requested a 15.5B funding from the national government in the 2021/2022 budget, an amount the Treasury is unable to allocate.
Instead, 13.5B has been disbursed, effectively cutting off over 95, 000 student beneficiaries from the financing this year.
In a statement yesterday, the HELB boss Mr. Charles Ringera said they will not be able to finance learners due to budget cuts and shrinking loan recoveries.
”95,000 students in universities, colleges, and technical and vocational education and training institutes (Tvets) will miss out on the loans. In total this year, we have lost the about Sh3. 2 billion which we will not get for purposes of funding the students,” Mr. Ringera said on Wednesday.
Battered economy, corruption in government and looting of public resources by senior state officials have led to Helb budget cuts and today, average funding per student in universities dropped to Sh38,000, down from the previous Sh45,000.
