Will the Higher Education Loans and Scholarship Board be the solution to university education financing?

Government announced on Wednesday March 9, 2016 that it will operationalise the Higher Education Loans and Scholarship Board in January 2017 next year after Parliament adopts it. The recent reforms announced by the Minister of Education Dr. Michael Kaingu are not new to the running of the public universities. The Government made efforts to introduce student loans in 1989 when a Working Party on Student Loans was appointed during the UNIP Government. The recommendation of the Working Party was that all citizens admitted to accredited higher education institutions should be given the option of applying for a student loan to cover tuition fees, and other direct educational expenses like personal allowance, living expenses and transport. The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology announced in 1989 that students admitted in higher education institutions would from then on be funded through student loans. The student loan scheme was, however, not implemented. Instead, bursaries still continued to be the mode of paying for the education of students at the two public universities.

On 30th April, 1997 then President of the Republic of Zambia, Mr. Frederick Chiluba, appointed a Commission of Inquiry “to investigate all aspects of life and operations at the University of Zambia and the Copperbelt University.” The appointment of the Commission followed the concern of the Government and the President in particular over the incessant disturbances at the two universities which quite often compelled university authorities to close the institutions.

The Commission comprised eight (8) members including Justice Bobby Bwalya as Chairman. Among the recommendations of the commission was that the Government should introduce a student loans scheme for needy students to assist them meet the cost of tuition and personal welfare; the commission further recommended for an establishment of an autonomous statutory body to administer the student loan scheme to be established by the Government to replace the Bursaries Committee. The body was to be known as the Higher Education Loans Board. Thus the decision by government to operationalise the Higher Education Loans and Scholarship Board in January 2017 as announced by the former Minister of Higher Education Dr Kaingu was not only long overdue but a move in the right direction.  One of the ways in which government meets the cost of students in public universities is through students finance or bursaries.

Student finance refers to the money received by students whilst in the university in order to assist them meet maintenance and education material costs. These include costs for tuition, meals, books, accommodation and projects. Most of the university students who are sponsored by the Government receive bursaries which cover the cost of meals, accommodation, tuition, books and projects. These bursaries are non refundable meaning that benefiting students are not obliged to repay back once they graduate.The only qualification for a bursary is admission in a public university.  According to the current practice, all students on government sponsorship at the public uinversities receive their meal allowances to buy their own meals. The allowances for projects are paid to those students taking courses that require projects. Book allowance was reintroduced in January 1997 and the government policy was that it was to be paid directly to the university bookshops. Currently, students are paid book allowance in monetary form as an allowance.

According to the 1997 Bobby Bwalya Commission’s recommendations, the justification for paying students allowances stermed from the idea that University students remain a privileged lot in the country.Most of the students who went forward to submit evidence told the Commission that society owed them something for being intelligent. Some students argued that they were the cream of society and that the government was therefore obliged to pay them for their intelligence. The Commission further noted that these ill-conceived attitudes by students still prevailed under conditions where the government had made drastic changes in the mode of financing and providing various services in the country such as cost sharing measures.

The Commission also observed that the size of the bursary scheme had been increasing over the years. The amountof money going into student bursaries had risen to the level where it was almost equivalent to the total amount of grants the public universities get from the government. The Commission noted that funding for student welfare was therefore rising to levels far higher than what was spent on the core functions of teaching and research in the public universities. According to the Parliamentary Hansards, in 2014, then Minister of Education Dr John Phiri said in parliament that out of the K395.5 million, bursary allocation to students at the University of Zambia (UNZA) for the year 2014 stood at K91, 161,907. The Minister explained that in 2014 alone, UNZA received a supplementary allocation of K57, 700,000, bringing the total allocation to the two universities, including the Copperbelt University (CBU), to K191, 825,179. Dr Phiri said that it was to be noted that the annual allocation to the ministry for the execution of the bursary programme was insufficient, hence the supplementary funding which was requested for by the ministry. He further told parliament that the budget for sponsorship of students takes into account the returning students as well as the new ones. Therefore, as a way forward, the decision to transform the bursary scheme into a loan scheme as a way of operationalising the loan scheme by the government and transforming the Bursaries Committee into a Loans Board which will be overseeing the revolving fund is the most sustainable and cost effective way of financing our public universities.  Although to me is what the nation has been waiting for, it remains to be seen whether the loan scheme will be a solution to the challenge of university education financing in Zambia.