By Alpha Abu
National Coordinator of the Sierra Leone Students Loan Committee, Paul Amara, has updated journalists in Freetown on steps they have taken to kick start the new scheme this year to help citizens pursue higher education.
He said those who benefit from the government support to undertake undergraduate and post-graduate studies in different courses would pay back after graduation based on a simple plan they had worked on to take effect anytime the graduate beneficiaries were employed.
The pilot phase, he noted, that would be launched soon would cater for some five hundred postgraduate and PhD applicants whose application forms had already been prepared and tabled before the Tertiary and Higher Education Minister for review.
To be considered for the scheme applicants would have to download and access the forms ahead of deadlines set between March and April or visit the main office for the programme at the Milton Margai College Campus on Jomo Kenyatta Road, Brookfields in Freetown as well as regional offices around the country.
He used the opportunity to calm the fears of the greater number of students who wished to pursue undergraduate studies, saying that the committee was aware of their concerns but affirmed their commitment to co-opting them when provisions were eventually available.
“The students loan scheme is here to help,” Amara asserted, adding that many Sierra Leoneans wanted to pursue post-secondary school education but lacked access to funding, whilst others were burdened with the responsibility of paying the fees for students.
He noted that there had been strike actions related to the payment of fees of the lack of it across all colleges but assured that those challenges were part of the reason for the establishment of the loan facility. He thanked the Ministries of Finance, Tertiary and Higher Education for supporting the exercise.
Amara said they had also sought the views of people in nationwide consultations and surveys about the programme as they went about setting it up, adding that they would entreat the public to be patient with them and cooperate with all other Sierra Leonean to assess the impact of the scheme when it turned fully operational.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (17/03/21)
