KACYIRU - Up to Frw19 billion would be recovered from students who attended universities on government loan since 1980, the Ministry of Education has projected.

Education Minister Dr Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya announced yesterday that the exercise to recover the monies starts next week.

Mujawamariya who addressed a press conference at Prime Holdings Conference Centre yesterday said has over 9,000 people who benefited from the education loan scheme.

Only 20 have confirmed to pay back, she said.

"We shall start with those who acquired the loans in 1980 but the process has to continue.

Students who acquired financial loan from the Students Financing Agency for Rwanda (SFAR) have to repay,” she stressed.

She said that the monies recovered would be allocated to other academic programmes such as increasing on the number of students eligible to acquire education loans, improving the quality of education in schools and universities and recruiting more teachers.

She said her ministry has worked with the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) and Ministry of Public Service and Labour (Mifotra) to identify loan defaulters.

"We know very well where these people work from and the amount of money they are paid,” she said.

She added: "We are also doing the mapping with foreign embassies to help identify those who might have studied on government loan to ensure that the ministry recovers the money it spent on them.”

She however said that those who will fail to pay because of problems like unemployment or ill health, the ministry would patiently wait and monitor them.

"The exemption is only when the beneficiary is dead. We are still perusing through the archives to identify every one who might have acquired the loan,” she further explained.

She further said that next year only students from poor families will benefit from the government loan facility through SFAR.

The initiative would assist students with impoverished background, who are going to study marketable courses like science and technology, she said.

The minister said science students will have to pay 25 percent under the cost sharing arrangement while the remaining 75 percent will be paid by the government.

Students intending to pursue different disciplines outside science and technology will pay 50 percent of the cost sharing and 50 percent will be paid by the government.

"We want to help students who are capable of getting jobs, or create their own, that’s why the ministry has emphasized on science based subjects,” Mujawamariya said.

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