SLTF Opens Application Portal For Students Who Are In Need Of Money To Further Their Education 

The Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) says it has opened its application portal to students who are in need of money to further their education  for the 2022/2023 academic year.

According to them, students who successfully apply and meet every requirement needed for the qualification of the loan will have access to the facility.

The Head of Public Relations at the Students Loan Trust Fund, George Ferguson Laing, said the fund has fulfilled its financial obligations to students who applied for support in 2022.

“We recently opened applications. We have opened the portals for students to apply, so as it stands now we are jet to see the numbers that would be applying. The portal will be open for a couple of months. We will be vetting these applications and once they go through the process, we will start disbursement,” Mr. Laing explained.

Over the years, there have been concerns that the Student Loan Trust Fund has failed to disburse loans to students.

According to Mr. Laing, measures have been put in place to address that situation.

“We have been putting in place strategies over the years to help make disbursement as smooth as possible. We rely partly on government for funding to disburse. But also one of our key sources of funding is recovery of loans from people that have benefited from the loan,” the Head of Public Relations at the Students Loan Trust Fund assured.

Targeted applicants

Meanwhile,  the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah, said, “It is expected that over 70,000 new applicants will access the loan for the 2022/2023 academic year as against 32,744 students who benefitted last year due to measures put in place to reach out to thousands of applicants,”

The expected sharp increase is due to the introduction of the ‘No Guarantor Policy’ last year which has eased the challenges applicants faced in the past looking for people to guarantee for them before being offered the loan.

Mr. Yeboah, who announced this to the media in Accra on Friday said, “every effort was being made to ensure that many students have access to the loan facility to support their education.”

Strategic measures

He mentioned the intensification of public education and increase in the number of access points nationwide as some of the measures put in place to bring to the attention of all Ghanaians the activities of the Trust across the country.

Nana Agyei Yeboah stated that, “there are currently 32,744 beneficiaries on the Students Loan from 110 tertiary institutions across the country. In the last academic year, the SLTF disbursed Gh64,645,575.00 of loans to 32,744 students.”

The CEO of the SLTF Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah has encouraged students to take advantage of the new policy to access subsidised financing for their tertiary education.

Background

The government through the SLTF, in June 2022 launched the ‘NO Guarantor policy’ with the sole aim of easing the difficulty applicants faced in accessing loans to support their education in tertiary institutions across the country.

With the introduction of this policy, student loan applicants no longer need guarantors to access the loan.

It is expected that the removal of the guarantor requirement will lead to an increase in the number of students who can access the loan.