The Higher Education Students’ Loans and Grants Board was established by an Act of Parliament No. 2 of 2015 as one of the reforms for the Ministry of Education in financing higher education in Malawi.

The board is mandated to provide loans and award grants to needy and academically outstanding students, respectively, who are pursuing higher education in accredited institutions of higher learning. It is also mandated to recover matured outstanding loans from all loan beneficiaries.

The administration of students’ loans has changed from the University of Malawi Central Office to the Ministry of Education, Malawi Savings Bank, Public Universities Students’ Loans Trust, and back to the Ministry of Education until in 2015 when government established the board.

The number of loan beneficiaries has increased from 4 123 in the 2015/16 academic year to 20 786 in the 2021/22 academic year.

A needy student is defined as one who has no financial assistance from any other source to cover the item or items of cost for which the application is made.

There are a number of requirements for one to qualify. They include one who lost one or both parents/guardians who were paying for their education, and having inherited nothing from the deceased parents/guardians.

Also a poor applicant with a disability or whose parents have a disability and do not have the capacity to generate sufficient income or an ultra-poor family or someone coming from a household where parents are chronically ill and do not have the capacity to generate sufficient income to finance higher education.

The board expects an applicant to provide verifiable evidence to support their socio-economic status; must be a Malawian needy student admitted at an accredited higher learning institution pursuing an accredited programme and must be a registered student.

The board also expects an applicant to be a generic student pursuing a generic programme (not open distance learning, economic fee-paying, mature entry, weekend programme or repeating and upgrading).

An applicant qualifying for the loan must be a student with six credits in Malawi School Certificate of Education or its equivalent upon getting admitted to an accredited higher learning institution, among other requirements.

Tuition fee is transferred directly to college/university account while upkeep is transferred directly to the student account.

The law mandates the board to recover loans from students that accessed loans from 1985 onwards. This means that whatever a student received from the government in a form of money to finance their higher education was a loan.

Therefore, every beneficiary is required by law to pay back the money with interest as a way of maintaining the value of the money. Let every beneficiary of this loan facility pay back the loan for the benefit of others. Loans are due for repayment two years after the successful or unsuccessful completion of one’s studies.

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