NEW GRADUATES TO PAY HALF OF SCHOLARSHIP

MBABANE – If you are a recent graduate who benefitted from a government study loan and are already employed, then read this.

The Study Loan Recovery Consortium has come out to encourage recent graduates to grab the chance of paying half of their study loans within the agreed stipulated time so that they may avoid repaying their full amount.
The study loan agreement stipulates that a graduate should start making study loan repayments within three months of employment.

Ägreement

Project Manager Khanya Magagula, said if a graduate did not make their study loan repayments within three months of employment, they would be in breach of the scholarship agreement.
Breaching the agreement would mean that they would then have to repay the full amount of the study loan.

 “The agreement clearly states that a study loan repayment must be made within three months of employment. We believe that some of the graduates who graduated last year have now been consumed into the workforce, while some will be employed soon.
“It is for that reason that the consortium is reminding and encouraging them to do the right thing and make the necessary arrangements to avoid breaching the scholarship agreement and paying the full amount of their study loan.

Loan

“A graduate who pays within the stipulated time, pays half of the study loan plus five percent for each year studied,” Magagula said.
It is worth noting that in April last year, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Thulani Mkhaliphi, announced in a press conference that all beneficiaries who had not made study loan repayment arrangements after three months of employment, would be made to pay the full amount of the study loan as they have breached the scholarship agreement. 

Mkhaliphi said the decision to implement the 100 per cent was provided for in the Study Loan Agreement and Scholarship Agreement Order of 1977.
He said while most people thought it was unlawful, it was actually provided for by the order, hence beneficiaries who had not come forward within three months of their employment would forfeit the 50 per cent rebate.

Coerced

Magagula said graduates should take serious what the PS said and warned that they should not be coerced to comply with the law.
 “Graduates should refuse to be used by people with their own agenda but must do the right thing. The beauty about our work is that we know where each and every beneficiary is employed and we will find them. It is better to make the repayment arrangement voluntarily than being forced.

“We have certain strategies in the pipeline which will make attaining certain services in the country difficult if you are a scholarship beneficiary who is not paying towards your scholarship”, he said.
Magagula further said beneficiaries should understand that just like any other loan, the one offered by government for tertiary students needed to be repaid.

He further said repaying the study loan was not just about the obligation of being a good citizen, and repaying the study loan but ensuring that the education baton was passed from one beneficiary to the next.
“Beneficiaries must understand that by making the study loan repayment, they are contributing towards sending a desperate student to tertiary”, he said.

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