We are transforming to fulfill the demands for financing tertiary education – SLTF

Chief Execu­tive officer of Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah, has said that the organi­sation was transforming to meet the demands of tertiary education financing in Ghana.

He said that with the intro­duction of the Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy, there had been an increase in the number of students who were qualified for funding from the SLTF.

“This means that we have to dismantle barriers to accessing our loans for the poorest in society, while exploring new sources of financing and increasing our loan recovery efforts,” he said.

Mr Yeboah said that in addition to re­moving the guarantor requirement to allow more students to access the loans, several measures had also been instituted to ensure that recovery of due loans met targets to ensure the sustainability of the Fund.

He made the remarks as he welcomed a delegation from the Higher Education Students Loan Board (HESLB) of Tanzania, which is in Accra to understudy the government’s “No Guarantor” Policy being implemented by the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF).

The 11-member delegation will be looking at key areas of student loan administration in Ghana.

The areas of interest for the delegation include the operation­alisation and efficiency of the SLTF’s funding sources, custom­er experience management and the digitalisation of the SLTF’s operations.

Members of the delegation comprise the Heads of key departments at HESLB, includ­ing finance and administration, planning and ICT, loan recovery, loan disbursement and corporate partnerships.

During their visit, they will also hold meetings with the GETFund, the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems and the Tan­zanian Students Union of Ghana.

The leader of the delegation, Dr Kennedy Hosea, Director for Higher Education at the Minis­try of Education, Science and Technology, traced the historic links between the two countries and thanked the SLTF for the opportunity to understand its operations.

Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah said that the SLTF had hosted a number of tertiary loan agencies on the continent in recent times, adding that the SLTF was always ready to share its experience with other agencies and also to learn from them.

The No Guarantor Policy was launched in June 2022, and its implementation in Ghana is being keenly monitored by member states of the Association of Africa Higher Education Financing Agencies (AAHEFA).