The other day, my colleague at work initiated a debate on The Higher Education Loans Board, loans repayment terms and consequences of defaulting. He, just like many others, was a beneficiary of the money disbursed to university students upon successful application. However, he has not started repaying the loan and strongly feels the Board is frustrating unemployed youth with ‘hefty’ fines in case the repayment terms aren’t followed to the latter. HELB slaps former university students who do not start repaying the loans one year after course completion with a monthly fine of KSh5,000. Unemployment is an enormous crisis in Kenya, with millions of university graduates stranded with their degrees and diploma certificates scouting for jobs. Let me at this point call him ‘Jeremy’ – not his real name. Jeremy argued that the government was doing very little to aid the youth secure jobs immediately after graduating from tertiary institutions of learning. Many at times one only
Expressions from an independent mind