President William Ruto has announced plans to abolish the Higher Educatįon Loans Board (HELB) and in its place establish a new body for higher educatįon funding.
In his announcement, Ruto promised to establish the National Skill and Funding Council that amalgamates Helb, TVET, and University Funding Board.
“To bridge the current higher educatįon funding gap of up to 45 per cent, the government will establish the National Skill and Funding Council that amalgamates Helb, TVET, and University Funding Board,” Ruto said.
According to Ruto, the move will double the current Higher Educatįon Loans Board funding from Kshh11 billion to Ksh22 billion and eliminates interest on HELB loans.
HELB is mandated with the management of a fund to be used for granting loans to assist Kenyan students to obtain higher educatįon at recognized institutions within and outside Kenya.
The government also intends to hire 30,000 additional teachers for basic educatįon, as well as 3,000 tutors for TVET institutions
“We intend to use our education system to develop world-class human capital. This is why, in January, we set out to hire more teachers to ensure that our primary to junior secondary transition is flawless,” President Ruto said.
“We commit to ensuring government-initiated in-service training, including Teacher Continuous Professional Development.”
In addition, the government will spend at least Ksh15 billion to equip 70 TVET institutions to assist in training learners.
“We will also hire tutors to look after our TVET institutions, because TVET has the best human capital that is tailored towards Science, Technical, Engineering, and Mathematics (Stem) subjects and areas that will lead us to engineering, because that is the future we seek,” he added.
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