SFAR clears air on students omissions

KIGALI - The national students’ loan scheme has come out to clear the air on the issue of thousands of students who are stranded at several institutions of higher learning due to scholarship issues. Speaking to The New Times, the Director) General of the Students Financing Agency for Rwanda (SFAR, Emmanuel Muvunyi preferred to call the mix-up a blatant oversight. The stranded students have accused the financing agency of turning around and omitting their names from the original list of the beneficiaries. However, Muvunyi said that the students based their argument on the lists that were released by the National Examinations Council in a government run weekly, Imvaho. “The lists that appeared in Imvaho only indicated students who have been admitted in the respective universities, it has nothing to do with SFAR scholarships. It’s absurd to see that such a clear issue has been mistaken. “The students just failed to draw a line between university admissions and the SFAR scholarship process” he noted.He revealed that the whole process that leads to admissions which starts with filling the universities choices up to the stage of releasing a comprehensive admission list in the national gazette for the selected students is not connected to SFAR processes. “It is only after this that SFAR comes in by making available a loan application form to those who are eligible according to the Presidential and Ministerial orders which explains eligibility for a loan and bursary.” Over 1,500 students from ten universities are stranded after reporting for studies hoping the names that appeared in Imvaho were those considered by SFARas those to benefit from the loan scheme. Until 2008, students who had been considered for government scholarships were published in Imvaho, but after the formation of SFAR, all students who qualify for university admission are published. Ends