Author: ABELA MSIKULA
AfricaPress-Tanzania: HIGHER Education Students’ Loan Board (HESLB) has extended the loan and grant application window for Academic Year 2020/2021 for ten days, effective today.
Initially, the window which was opened on July 21, this year was to close yesterday but the HESLB said yesterday the application period has been extended to provide room for applicants who have not completed their loan application procedures to do so.
The Board’s Executive Director, Mr Abdul-Razaq Badru told the media in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the decision followed requests the board had received from several students, parents and guardians.
“The board has given more room for all applicants to finalise the processes. The idea is to enable all of them to benefit from the available loans,” he said.
HESLB will serve more students next academic year after mobilising sufficient funds for the cause. The board expects the number of beneficiaries to increase from the previous year’s 132,292 to 145,000 students in the next academic year, an equivalent to 10 per cent rise.
Also the budget has increased from 450bn/- to 464bn/-, and Mr Badru said almost one-third of 145,000 beneficiaries are first year students, while the remaining are continuing students.
“As of now (yesterday), we have already received 85,921 applications and only 71,888, equal to 84 per cent have correctly submitted their request forms,” Mr Badru said.
“It means they have correct attachments and are filled effectively. The rest applications (14,033), equal to 16 per cent are still working on their forms,” he added.
To assist students to correctly fill in their applications, the HESLB embarked on public education where 14 regions in Mainland and Zanzibar have already been covered.
The form six leavers, who have been selected to join the National Service (JKT) training have been also reached in about 18 camps, affirmed Mr Badru.
According to him, the common mistakes observed during the application processes include failure to attach important documents, mostly personal/applicant birth and parents’ death certificates.
Sometimes, he said, the attached documents are not verified by the relevant authorities, which are the Registration, Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency (RITA) and Zanzibar Civil Status Registration Agency (ZCSRA).
RITA’s Manager of Marketing and Communications, Mr Josephat Kimaro, commented that the applicants have been slowing the processes when an applicant scans and sends only half of the document (birth and death certificates), not showing even the certificate’s entry number, which is the most important part.
He said that 97,739 birth and 16,004 death certificates have been received for verification, with 83088 (birth) and 12,953 (death) certificates already being verified.
“But all the received applications are not new…are those which need ratifications by applicants. We urge the students to be more careful when sending us applications. Our capacity is to verify over 4,000 per day. We also remind them to send us only birth and death certificates, but not academic credentials,” said Mr Kimaro.
