Students asking for more loans to pay off old loans

EASTERN PROVINCE BUGESERA—Former beneficiaries of government students’ loans in Nyamata have appealed to the government for scholarships for further studies to empower them to pay loans previously obtained. The government through the Ministry of Education and the students financing agency of Rwanda earlier this week launched a loan recovery campaign in which billions of Francs are projected to be realized, accumulating for years. Speaking to The New Times this week, as the recovery campaign got under way, the beneficiaries who claim to have graduated from Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in 2005 and asked not to be named said, “We have lived without proper jobs since our completion of studies. The education qualifications we acquired are not adequate to warrant good paying jobs to enable us refund the loans.” The beneficiaries currently teaching in Nyamata schools claim that if they had upgraded their academics standards to post-graduate levels they would be capable of repaying the loans without a hassle. “We were forced to take up teaching for a living.” They said it would be unfair for the ministry to start slashing their meager salaries to recover the loans. They stressed that they deserved loans for further studies before embarking on the loan repayment, [one of them]claiming he has submitted his requests for post-graduate sponsorship on several occasions but without going through. Ends