By Mabinty M. Kamara
The government continued its engagement with private sector players on Wednesday on the design and mapping out of plans for the implementation of the proposed student loan scheme.
The student loan scheme is an initiative of the Bio administration aimed at providing financial support for Sierra Leoneans seeking higher education.
Wednesday’s engagement, which was held at the Ministry of Finance’s Conference room, brought together stakeholders from different sectors including the banks, the Anti-Corruption Commission, as well as student union bodies. Also represented were micro finance institutions, the National Civil Registration Authority, ministries, departments and agencies.
In a statement, the Deputy Minister of Technical and Higher Education, Dr. Turad Senesie, noted that the initiative, apart from it being part of the government manifesto promise, is a global model that had been adopted by many countries which makes for students to take responsibility of their tertiary education.
He added that in Sierra Leone, it is aimed at scaling down on the Student Grant-in-Aid that is awarded to some students in the tertiary education.
However, he noted that the initiative cannot be achieved without the active involvement of key stakeholders to discuss pertinent issues, which was why they were engaging with them.
“For us to do that there is need for stakeholder’s engagement. And that is the reason why we are here today. We want to have the best so that when once we have the final policy for the implementation of this model; it is going to be owned by the people of Sierra Leone. We do not want to sit alone at the ministry and then design a policy and at the end of the day, when it’s being implemented, we begin to hear people say we were not consulted,” he said.
According to officials, similar engagements have been held across the country.
Dr. Senesie noted that Sierra Leone has not gotten much from the Student Grant-in-Aid that successive governments have been funding since time immemorial as people have not been given back by contributing to national development.
“As I am talking to you, it is now that we are putting together the database for beneficiaries of SLG over the years. The data we met at the ministry is so haphazard that for us to rely on it to do any projection or to say this is what we have spent on Sierra Leone in terms of grants is not easy. But with the team that we have in the ministry, we are now putting together a database. We now know that we have spent so much money and there is no way we can recover the monies spent on Sierra Leoneans. So we think we have to scale down on the SLG. Scaling down on SLG means we have to divert the resources or the funds to the student loan scheme, so that we now have students to be given the loan and they take responsibility of their own higher education and then pay back the loan to the government,” he explain.
The issues discussed at the engagement include how the disbursement of the loan will be done, interest rate, data security, period of payment amongst others.
The loan, according to officials, will not be limited to Sierra Leoneans studying in country, but will be extended to those who wish to travel abroad for advance studies on subject matters that are key to national development.
Paul Amara, National Coordinator for the Tertiary Education Loan Scheme, told Politico that the scheme will be launched by next year. He noted that upon launching, they will ensure that the disbursement is done in a credible and transparent manner that will benefit all Sierra Leoneans, devoid of name region, or political alienation.
“We want to make sure that when students get the loan, they should have leverage in terms of employment. When you employ people who have the student loan, then the chances of you getting the fund back is great because it doesn’t make sense for people to go to college and come back without jobs,” he said.
He went on: “Recovery is contingent on employment. In Ghana, for instance, when you go through college and get your national service certificates, then your chances of getting a job is almost guaranteed. This is what we are going to do to issue certificates to those who are beneficiaries of the loan,” he said.
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