By Brian Yatich
Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) Thursday launched an e-Financial Literacy Program that seeks to address lack of knowledge by students on how to manage finances.
Speaking during the launch in Nairobi, HELB CEO, Charles Ringera said one of the key challenges that the Board has been facing with university students is their frivolous spending and finance management as he pointed out the rising cases of online betting.
“Students need to understand that HELB is a loan as well as understand that they must use the money that has been disbursed to their accounts well” he says.
The service is in a digital platform both in video and pdf format that allows students to read and watch in a bid to gain knowledge and help them understand the HELB Loan application process to which they are then prompted with a set of ten questions aimed at bringing financial concepts which is tailored on financial literacy.
The program kicked off in August 2016 with 1st time undergraduate loan applicants and has since captured over 61,000 applications where the students have completed the e-Financial Literacy program and passed the exam enabling them to then complete the online application process.
Ringera said that the program is tiered for 2nd years, 3rd years and 4th years aligning them with relevant information.
“For the 4th years students we have focused on loan repayment channels and how to avoid the penalty of KES. 5000, We then have conversation with them on entrepreneurship so that they not necessarily wait for employment but rather think of how to become employers.” he said
He challenged APA and KCB, who are the sponsors of Maisha Edu to empower Kenya’s youth by bringing financial concepts to life for today’s digital generation.
