Students urged to repay Tesas loans

By BOSORINA ROBBY

 

RECIPIENTS of the Tertiary Education Study Assistance Scheme (Tesas) loan from 2000 to 2007 are urged to start repaying their loans to the Office of Higher Education through the Department of Finance and Treasury, The National reports.

OHE student support and scholarship assistant director Joseph Morimai said recipients living in the National Capital District should go to the cash office at Vulupindi Haus and make payments to finance revenue vote #106.01.

Recipients in the provinces could visit their district treasury office and make payments to the same vote.

Those employed recipients are asked to provide their employment details to the OHE.

Morimai said copies of the receipt should then be faxed to the OHE for their database and cross-check purposes.

He said the OHE would design and maintain debt recovery database to allow accurate accounting of individual student’s loans and repayments, and to keep all student data.

He said since its inception in 2000, OHE had loaned close to K6 million to more than 3,000 students in Tesas attending nursing, teaching, technical and business colleges and universities.

“So far, only two women have repaid their loans since the Tesas loan scheme started,’’ he said.

“So, by creating this repayment mechanism with the help of the Finance and Treasury Department, we hope to recoup at least 60% of the funds.”

The loans scheme was developed to help students enrolling at universities and non-university institutions pay their tuition fees.

The four scholarship categories were academic excellence scholarship (AES), Higher Education Contribution Assistance Scheme (Hecas) and self-sponsored.

The service was suspended in 2008 to allow OHE to develop ways to get its money back.