Kenyatta University in partnership with Higher Education Loans Board to help needy students

By LONAH KIBET

Kenya: The Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) and the Kenyatta University (KU) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enable students joining the university access loans easily.

The MoU signed yesterday will however be of benefit to orphaned and needy but talented students undertaking degree programmes at KU on self-sponsored basis famously known as Module II or parallel students.

Speaking after the signing of the MoU, Helb Chief Executive Officer Charles Ringera said the spirit of the agreement is to enable needy but talented students achieve the goals of higher education.

“Helb will offer matching loans as per their policy, based on means-testing instrument towards tuition fee, while KU will offer matching scholarships of the remaining annual financial needs of the students,” said Ringera during the signing ceremony at the institution.

Ringera said Helb has committed itself to partnering with individuals and institutions ready to provide financial support to Kenyan students pursuing higher education.

He added that the cost of education keeps going high on a daily basis making it hard for those from humble backgrounds to pursue further studies.

“We need to merge the divide between the poor and the rich by way of enabling equal access to education,” he said.

The partnership will help students pursuing fields, but not limited to, of performing arts and sports in the institution. KU Vice-Chancellor Olive Mugenda said the number of scholarships to be offered is set to increase and that the institution was focusing on helping students who would otherwise miss out on nurturing their talents, economic empowerment and social development.

“We are looking at improving the quality of lives of our young generation by giving them quality education,” said Prof Mugenda.

The university has already announced a Sh10 million budget for 100 undergraduate scholarships for the academic year 2013/2014 set to commence this September. 

Ringera also called on those who have not started paying their students’ loans to take advantage of the penalty amnesty, which expires on July 7.