Good News To Students Following The Multi-Million Free Laptops Project.
The Higher Education Loan Board (HELB) has announced the good news to university students after a proposal of a multi-million free laptop project.
The star media has established that university students will get Sh 44,000 loan to buy laptops under the HELB proposed project.
The higher education loan board chief executive officer Charles Ringera on Thursday last week told the Star that the board is awaiting the Treasury to approve the economic stimulus package to commence the process of allocating the loans to the target group of students.
According to Ringera, the project will start with half of those joining the university in the first years which is about 61,000 students.
Roughly Ringera hinted that the project is likely to cost about 2.5 billion Kenya shillings.
Ringera further informed Parliament while making the proposal that the project is meant to benefit students from the needy families from the group of first years.
The multi-million laptop project will be of great help for inline learning because since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic several universities have adopted online learning.
In the new online learning initiative, many students from poor families are left stuck because they cannot afford computers and some depend on gadgets such as mobile phones to attend the online sessions.
Ringera further said that in addition to online learning, students who choose to work online and get income will benefit.
In response to the proposed project, University of Nairobi vice-chancellor Stephen Kiama praised the project saying that it is timely and will be of great help to the target group.
According to professor Kiama, as it was reported by the Star, the project will help the students in reducing the cost of operation. He added that it will also help those students who might be unable to physically attend class sessions for it will be more flexible.
