The Higher Educations Loans Board (HELB), has rejected proposals to have the grace period for the repayment of student loans extended to four years.
HELB CEO, Charles Ringera, said that the proposed bill would affect other students benefiting from the same programme.
Mr. Ringera instead proposed that the board adopts other measures in order to cope with the myriad challenges.
"The only remedy would be to either reduce the number of student beneficiaries or reduce the amount allocated to each student," said Ringera.
Read More
BBI Proposals
He added that if the bill was to take effect, then the grace period extension would adversely affect the operations of the board, which would have a ripple effect on the students as well.
The BBI report proposed that the grace period is given to the beneficiaries be extended to four years from the date of completing their studies.
The Bill seeks to amend the Higher Education Loans Board Act 1995, that only accorded the students a window period of one year after completion of studies.
According to the report, graduates should be allowed to request exemptions from repayment until they secure jobs.
In February 2020, beneficiaries of the fund were up in arms protesting what they termed as punitive terms.
