Students' loan scheme list out, 43% of the beneficiaries are female students

Uganda government has released the list of beneficiaries for the year 2024/25 students’ loan scheme.

According to the list, 43%of the beneficiaries are female students and this is the highest percentage since the inception of the scheme, reflecting the government’s commitment to gender equity.

While releasing the list at Uganda media center,Dr John Chrysestom Muyingo, the state minister for in charge of higher education said that of the 1,838 successful applicants, the females are 790 (43%) way above the upper limit of 30% that the Higher education student’s financing board has ever awarded to the girls.

The Board also awarded 29 Persons with Disabilities to do various courses in sciences and humanity programs, of these 18 are males, while 11 are females.

''I am happy to note that, the Board has this time exceeded the 30% affirmative action towards the female students since inception. I would like therefore, to encourage the girl child to study sciences and tap into the opportunities offered by government to study on government loans''. said Dr Muyingo.

''I am happy to report to all Ugandans and more so my Honorable Colleagues the Members of Parliament, that the Board has already taken the strides in ensuring that the Loan Beneficiaries have been largely selected on District Quota system. 60% of the offers have been equitably distributed among the 137 Districts of the Country. This is a commendable effort in the right direction towards ensuring regional balance in the offering of education opportunities to all Ugandans''. he stated

In his remarks, CPA  Michael O Wanyama  the Executive Director of Higher education students' financing board-HESFB said that the journey for selection of the Student Loan beneficiaries for this academic year 2024/2025 started on 10^th June when the board  invited interested applicants to send in their applications till 31 ^st July 2025.

''We received a total of 6,661 applications whereby, a total of 2,880 applications were ineligible for various reasons leaving only 3,781 applications to be reviewed for selection. Of this, a total of 1,838 applications were successful within the available resource envelope of UShs 7.25 billion meant to support the first years. On average we shall support only 27.5% of the applicants''. he said  adding that the number of young people who need the loan is more than the number of the loan opportunities available, hence many needy applicants do not get the chance to be funded. The 72.5% of the applicants were not successful due to limited resource envelope.

Loans are given to students who study from either a Public University or Chartered Private University and other Tertiary Institutions offering diploma courses.