BRD, UR officials explain delays in students' subsistence allowances

After a long time of complaining and expressing dissatisfaction from  students of the University of Rwanda, Rwanda Development Bank together with Higher education council and the leadership of University of Rwanda have come out to iron out the issues and explain the reasons why student's allowances have been delaying. 

For a long time now, students in higher learning institutions that get allowances from the government have expressed their grievance about their delay in receiving it. The 40,000RWF that each student is eligible for every month is supposed to support them through school delays, but with these delays, students say it affects their concentration and wellbeing in school. 

In a press conference today, Development Bank of Rwanda, University of Rwanda and Higher Education Council sought to address the long-standing financial constraints on the side of the students. The head of student funding at Rwanda Development Bank Mrs. Claudine Matata said that there is a criteria that need to be followed for the students to be able to get this money and that the students that are having issues are the ones that not done things right.

Currently, BRD is facilitating 28,000 students and since October last year, 458 students have not received their allowances for three months. This is because they haven’t signed their contracts as well as first-year students who aren’t familiar with the system. BRD hopes to solve all these challenges through system integration of universities, HEC and BRD to avoid the confusion that comes with registering for the allowances.

In 2016, BRD signed an agreement with the government to start managing the education loan fund as well as conduct recovery of the loans. Currently, 9millionRwf has been recovered so far.