Govt dishes out bursaries

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:26:20 +0000

By MOSES SINJWALA

GOVERNMENT has awarded 4,612 bursaries to first year students in the 2018 academic year across the 24 TEVETA institutions in the country, says Minister of Higher Education, Pro Nkandu Luo.

Pro. Luo said that in order for government to coordinate and promote relevant, and cost effective and sustainable higher education and skills development for improved productivity and quality of life, the ministry had to grant loan and TEVETA bursaries across the country.

She said that out of the total 4,612 of the TEVETA bursaries awarded 1,447 were female students representing 31% of the total in accordance with the SADC protocol that says that a member country must ensure that the female gender must receive 30 % benefit of awards. While 3,165 are male students representing 60%.

“However, the low numbers of females getting loans was as a result of the female notion of male dominance syndrome, in courses such as engineering and sciences which TEVETA institutions broadly covered,” She said.She added that under the TEVETA bursary awards distribution, 64% was given to urban institutions, while 36% was given to rural institutions.

“The TEVETA bursary award distribution gave representation of 64% to the urban institutions given that 70% of the TEVET institutions were along the main transport corridor by size and higher qualification, while the rural institutions represented a 36% TEVETA Bursary award,” She said.

“Government will continue to award more TEVETA bursaries to the rural students to ensure more skills development and poverty reduction,” she added.

She further said that her ministry has offered 1710 scholarships out of which 398 were females and 1312 being males, to students in five colleges.

“The scholarships given are provided under the support to science, technology education project (SSTEP). They cover technology, science and engineering related programmes at: Northern technical college (NORTEC), Lukashya Trades Training Institute, St Mawagali in Choma, Luanshya Technical and Business College and Nkumbi International College,” she said.

Furthermore, she said the ministry had awarded 2,172 loans to first year students at the University of Zambia for the 2017/2018 academic year from the total applicants of 2,233 of which 1149 were male and 1084 were female.

She also added that from the Copperbelt University 2890 students had been awarded loans for all the campuses from the total number of 4,025 of which 222 applicants did not meet the set requirement, a further 913 were eligible but due to budgetary constraints could not be award.

“We have requested for addition funding from the Ministry of Finance to cater for the eligible students who were accepted at both CBU and UNZA but could not be given loans,” she said.