Luo directs HELSB to include students from rural areas in the disbursement of loan schemes

Higher Education Minister Professor Nkandu Luo has instructed the Higher Education Loans and Scholarship Board to consider students from rural areas in the disbursement of loan schemes.

Professor Luo says students in the rural areas are disadvantaged due to poor or limited information.

She says this will give an opportunity to students in the rural areas who have not been applying because of lack of information.

Speaking during the inauguration of the Higher Education Loans and Scholarships Board in usaka today, Professor Luo has also called for gender equality in the way the loans are distributed.

She has also implored the board to be transparent, or risk being labeled corrupt.

Professor Luo has further urged the board to create a revolving fund and grow funds in order to assist more vulnerable students who wish to pursue programmes that are needed for the country to move the economic agenda.

Meanwhile Professor Luo has expressed fears that the board is bound to fail due to the number of Permanent Secretaries who have been appointed as board members owing to their busy schedules.

And Higher Education Loans and Scholarship Board Chairperson Penelope Mapoma has assured the minister that the distribution of loans will be done in a transparent manner.

Mrs. Mapoma says the board will develop a code of conduct and a code of ethics that will define the way it will work in order to serve the students.