Close to 10,000 students have lodged appeals through the Higher Education Financing portal, protesting the new funding model that the government introduced to universities. Godfrey Monari, the chief executive, Universities Fund, said review is underway while students will get status of their appeal within three weeks since application.
“We have received over 10,000 appeals, and this is an ongoing process. We want to identify where these needy students are so that we can place them in the correct funding band,” said Monari. That will be by updating the universities on the household fees for these students. The notifications are set to be issued via the HEF portal and through SMS alerts.
The Ministry of Education is considering deploying the National Government Administration Officers, NGOA, to verify the appeal cases to ensure data accuracy. “We are going to engage NGAO to visit some of these students and verify the information they have given us,” Monari added.
Ksh5.8 billion is for student loans, while Ksh2.8 billion is for scholarships. The funds will be devolved across five bands, which have been categorized based on need. Finally, Monari assured that the process of releasing student loans would begin the following week, followed by scholarship funds to universities.
Processing of loans and scholarship awards for 127,000 students complete; the application will close in December 2024. Monari said that they are now working on smoothening the banding process for clarity, as there have been complaints of miscategorization, which has been a major challenge in the funding model’s second cohort.
It replaces the Differentiated Unit Cost model. The new funding model fronted by President William Ruto on May 3, 2023, considers variables like parents’ background, gender, type of course, marginalization, disability, family size, and composition to come up with household needs to determine funding.
- Band I: 70% scholarship from the government, 25% student loans, 5% parent contribution.
- Band II: 60% scholarship, 30% loans, 10% parent contribution.
- Band III: 50% scholarship, 30% loans, 20% parent contribution.
- Band IV: 40% scholarship, 30% loans, 30% parent contribution.
- Band V: 30% scholarship, 30% loans, 40% parent contribution.
According to Government Spokesperson Isaac Mwaura, this new model was aimed at being an equalizer to financial support for education among all deserving students. However, many parents and students expressed their grievances over the possible case of miscategorization, mostly falling under Band IV and Band V, which required higher parental contributions.