Students Loan Trust requests seed money from government

The Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) wants the government to give it seed money as part of strategies to prepare itself to meet the financial needs of the avalanche of students expected to gain admission to the various tertiary institutions in the 2020/2021 academic year.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the fund, Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah, said per the trust’s projections, there would be an upsurge of students accessing the loan in the 2020/2021 academic year, following the completion of the beneficiaries of the first batch of the Free Senior High School programme.

He explained that because the programme had increased enrolment in the SHSs and many of the students were from poor homes, it would be difficult for many of the beneficiaries to further their education without financial support, hence the need to build a robust loan scheme to cater for such students.

Courtesy call

The CEO of the fund made this known when he paid a courtesy call on the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Kobby Asmah, and a team of editorial staff in Accra on Monday, October 28, 2019.

The Daily Graphic team included a Deputy News Editor, Mr Kwame Asare Boadu, and the Deputy Editor of Graphic Online, Mr Enoch Darfah-Frimpong.

Mr Yeboah was accompanied by the Head of Public Relations at the SLTF, Mr George Ferguson Laing, and the Head of Recovery, Mr Justice Wiafe Sarkodie.

The visit was to solicit the support of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), particularly the Daily Graphic, to help the fund to build a robust loan scheme by way of sensitising and educating the public on the fund to enable many more Ghanaian students to access the facility.

Beneficiaries

Nana Yeboah noted that a total of 35,000 undergraduate tertiary students accessed loans from the fund annually, representing 10 per cent of the total number of undergraduate students in the various tertiary institutions in the country.

He said the fund needed about GH¢200 million for the 2020/2021 academic year, explaining that the Act that set up the scheme, was supposed to get 10 per cent of all inflows to the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), but currently received about four to five per cent, besides the one per cent it received from the telecommunications service tax (CST).

Nana Yeboah, therefore, called on other government agencies providing scholarships to students, such as the Ghana Cocoa Board, to channel such resources through the fund, since scholarships were not sustainable.

According to him, the loan scheme had become more attractive to many tertiary students, following an increase in the amount students could access by 50 per cent.

He said unlike in the past where students were given about GH¢1,500, students could now get as high as GH¢3,000 each academic year, pointing out that the scheme was working to ensure that requirements for accessing the loan were softened.

He explained, for instance, that unlike in the past where students had to provide three guarantors, each working in the civil service, the scheme had now reduced the guarantorship process to only one person, and gone ahead to allow churches, Chief Imams, and the metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies (MMDAs), as well as established organisation, to serve as guarantors.

Recovery

“So, we are trying to build a robust students’ loan programme that can assist many students,” Nana Yeboah said, adding “but in this journey, we are looking up to partner agencies like you, the Daily Graphic, to help sensitise and educate Ghanaians to see the need to build a robust students loan fund that could support the nation.

The SLTF boss said when he took over as the head of the scheme, the recovery rate was about 32 per cent, but through innovation and hard work, the recovery rate had now increased to about 65 per cent, with many other interventions to increase it further, saying, “we want to recover more so that we can give more loans to people.”

He expressed worry that many students refused to pay back loans taken from the scheme, because “students take the loan and after graduation, they travel outside.”

Nana Yeboah said the scheme did not have accurate data on students who had taken the loan but had travelled outside the country.

He also said many of the loan beneficiaries too were unaware of how to pay back the loans, hence the scheme’s drive to increase its sensitisation programmes, as well as recruiting a recovery officer.

“We have dedicated the whole of May in each year as a recovery month,” he noted, stating that the scheme had been using mass media announcements and interviews, as well as an app called MyGHPay, to enable the public to get more information on the scheme.

Graphic’s support

For his part, the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Kobby Asmah, said: “We are willing to partner you; our doors are always open.”

He pledged the support of the paper to help sensitise and educate the public on the SLTF.

Mr Asmah expressed happiness about the new measures the scheme had initiated such as increased efforts to recover loans, saying such interventions would help many other students to benefit from the scheme.

He noted that the scheme would help the country to produce more highly skilled population as many people who hitherto could not raise the needed financial support to further their education could do so through the scheme and finance their education at the tertiary level.

“Education is a holistic endeavour and all key stakeholders must get involved,” the Daily Graphic Editor said. “If you don’t have access to credit facilities, how do you pursue higher education?” he quizzed.