Gov’t releases GH¢12m as no guarantor loan to students
An estimated amount of GH¢12 million has been released as no guarantor loan to students from 148 tertiary institutions across the country, the management of the Student Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) has announced.
Speaking to the media at a press briefing, the Chief Executive Officer of the Loan Trust Fund, Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah, said about 10,000 tertiary students in the country are expected to benefit from the no guarantor loan.
The GH¢12 million, the Executive Officer of the Student Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) in Accra last Friday told journalists covers payment to only first-time applicants for the first semester of the year of the 2022 academic year.
“First-time applicants from the University of Education, Winneba recorded 1,523, the highest number of beneficiaries, followed by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) which had 787.
The University of Ghana had 511 students, the Koforidua Technical University recorded 488 students and Takoradi Technical University, had 371, respectively,” Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah told stakeholders at the media briefing.
He stated that the amounts received by the students ranged from GH¢1,500 being the lowest and GH¢3,000 as the highest, depending on the needs of the students after a means-testing assessment by the Fund before disbursement.
Explaining the purpose of the no guarantor loan that will go a long way to ease the burden of students, Yeboah said all continuing students who were beneficiaries of the Students Loan Scheme in the country were paid in March this year.
The Loan Fund Chief Office said the only people who had so far not been granted the loans were those who had applied but not completed the submission of the required information to the No Guarantor Policy scheme.
He appealed to those who had not yet applied to the scheme to do so since they could also benefit from the loan which was readily available to all qualified students irrespective of their political, social, religious and ethnic orientation.
Background
The government on 8th June 2022 launched the no guarantor loan policy expected to remove the requirement for loan applicants or tertiary students to present guarantors before accessing the loan at the College of Engineering, KNUST
The no tertiary students guarantor policy recently slated to be launched on Monday, December 20, 2021, at the KNUST School of Business was suspended until further notice due to circumstances beyond government control.
But, following the approval of the no guarantor loan policy by President Nana Akufo-Addo early this year, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia Wednesday officially launched the scheme for students to be granted loans.
“The No Guarantor Student Loan, the cumbersome and restrictive scheme of students providing SSNIT contributors as guarantors before they could access student loans for tertiary education, has been abolished
The No Guarantor Student Loan policy makes it possible for qualified young Ghanaians to access loans to fund their tertiary education, using their Ghana card,” Dr Mahamudu Bawumia stated at the launch of the loan scheme.
