Filosofia ya Rorya
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- Sep 20, 2021
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Category: Education Stipend
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Higher education loans related strikes must be subdued just as they happen than anon to avoid set of pertinent crises that may cripple smooth operations of the institutions. Disbursement and recovery of loans have been decried of by the public [beneficiaries inclusive]. Serious problems occur in the grading, remittances, time, amount, documentation, illegibility and recoveries. In a nutshell, they consolidate into a more complex problem whose solution is costly to find.
However, the paradigm of boycott in any modern establishment is a mere waste of time, efforts and perhaps resources [consider meetings to find solutions and even forming commissions of enquiry] and this is to the detriment of bedridden national economy. Also truth finding may sometimes involve un-necessary red-tape but at the end of the day come up with cyber solution. The fateful stipends do nothing other than resuscitating more or less dying poor students who are not sure of their discharge from the critical situation of the politics of higher education students’ loans.
Students since insisted that loan has one salient feature of recoverability, can it then be dished out 100%? State of national economy and the style of public expenditure that is in place can answer this. This article gives advice to the government that it is high time now that since students’ loans board was established it should now have gotten enough experience of how to manage this sensitive institution by coming up with modern constructive ways of delivering their mandate and reduce dependence on the government for subsidy to disburse to students as loans.
I would advise that loans should be made mandatory for every student who qualifies for higher education not only at the universities but also colleges as well. The system of giving loans to some segments of students and denies some is outdated and is only bringing class struggle within the same society. Loans accrue from the government taxes collected from the parents [peasants and workers] of all students but when applying for it, some students whose parents also paid the said taxes are prejudiced and discriminated.
Can the government implement this advice that since it made possible by law regularization of property equity through MKURABITA and customary land ownership, it is now good opportunity to allow higher education students use customary property as security for securing loans from the students’ loans board.
The following are the advantages of implementing this advice:-
The procedure will enable every student who applies for loan to get it.
There will be no grading by category of students for amounts of loans they deserve. Everyone will apply as per his/her plan. Presently, orphans are considered as those who have lost paternal parents but those who have lost maternal parents are not considered orphans, the reason for this discrimination can be attributed to the culture of Africa where family governance is naturally patrilineal. In other families, mothers are the bread winners and not the fathers, what if the mother dies.
Recovery of loans will be made easy as opposed to the present system where sometimes tracing of loans beneficiaries in their offices of employment is virtually impossible and sometimes it is possible to blackmail recovery officers who have no patriotism at heart.
Immigrants who masquerade/impersonate to be bona fide nationals of Tanzania to qualify for loans will be easily known as if they do not own a customary property then it will not be possible for them to cheat the loans board. As of now, the laws of Tanzania do not allow foreigners to own land or fixed/immovable property.
Beneficiaries of loans will not dodge recovery as doing so will attract auctioning of securities for loans [family land] an act which is bitter as the siblings of the beneficiaries will miss the chances for higher education which they should have gotten through using the same security [family land] if the first beneficiary serviced his/her loan without default, further to that, the family will be forced to vacate the land and leave it for the buyer who bought it through auction.
The loans board will expand its reserves through collection of debts with cumulative interest and be able to widen its scope of serving big number of students; moreover, board’s dependence on government subsidy will be lessened.
Loans board will expand its branches across the country [take its services close to the people at grassroots] and create opportunities for employment which will contribute to government efforts of addressing unemployment.
Beneficiaries who miss opportunities for immediate employment after graduation should be put to a special programme of working for the board without salary until margin of the value of loans with interest is reached/recovered and thus be set free to pursue employment elsewhere or permanently engaged by the board. This procedure will allow the siblings of this type of beneficiary continue using the same family land for securing loans for education.
A special plan can be worked out by the loans board for the beneficiaries whose academics do not match with the work of the board to be filled for employment in relevant institutions and work there but their salaries be remitted to the board by their employers. For this to work out easily, the beneficiaries may be engaged as interns with half salaries [which should entirely be remitted to the loans board] so that it can easily attract majority of employers to open up for them given their cheap price/remuneration. Absconding this employment should immediately attract recovery of loan by auctioning family land that was used as security and offset the loan.
This kind of employment will help provide to the beneficiaries [interns] the highly needed experience by majority employers than if they stayed at home for long waiting for employment through normal way of securing it.
Use of customary property as security for education loan will leverage their collateral value for entrepreneurship for family welfare and contribute to poverty reduction.
All above measures if government buys the idea for application will help inculcate expenditure discipline and spirit of entrepreneurship in the family.
Regular monitoring and evaluation of disbursements and recoveries should be made a permanent priority without excuse whatsoever.
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