Months after the government cut short Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) loans to Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) students, the National Treasury has finally allocated the institution Ksh 500 million for HELB sponsorship.
The allocation, which was made in the 2024/2025 supplementary budget, was confirmed by KMTC CEO Kelly Oluoch in a statement on Thursday, March 27.
According to the CEO, students will be able to access the funds in a "few weeks" via the HELB portal after Treasury releases the funds.
Oluoch asserted that the allocation came after months of laborious efforts by the institution's management, through the Ministry of Health, which got into contact with various arms of the government, including President William Ruto, to push for the reinstitution of the programme.
“This means we will go ahead and ask the Treasury to release the funds. Once the money reaches our bank, which may take a few weeks, we will ask HELB to open the portal for students to apply,” said Oluoch.
The KMTC HELB programme was established in the 2022/2023 financial year, and so far, 22,342 KMTC students have benefited.
The programme, however, was cut short at the end of the 2023/2024 financial year due to the government’s decision to impose austerity measures.
The stringent austerity measures, accompanied by budget cuts, left many students in the institution without financial aid to continue their medical training.
“The absence of funding has placed a heavy burden on many of our students, making it difficult for them to continue with their training,” said Oluoch.
“This prompted us to engage extensively with key government bodies, including the Parliamentary Committee on Health and the Ministry of Health, to advocate for the reinstatement of the funding,” he added.
The development comes two days after HELB kick-started the process of recovering unpaid loans by former beneficiaries.
In a notice on Tuesday, March 25, HELB gave defaulters a seven-day ultimatum to begin the process of repaying their loans, warning that it would proceed to engage the guarantors of the defaulters should the beneficiary fail to initiate the loan repayment.
