Students' Loan Scheme

Background

A very high percentage of young people in Sierra Leone are unable to access higher education and continue their schooling beyond the secondary school level because of the high cost of tuition and other related expenses. This situation has significantly reduced the number of skilled professionals available in various sectors and adversely affected the human and socio-economic development of the country.

Successive Governments have over the years, attempted to improve access to tertiary education by providing grant-in-aid to financially challenged and deserving students as well as tuition fees subsidies to the entire tertiary student body. However, apart from the fact that the coverage of the grant-in-aid is very limited and its distribution inefficient, this form of support and the fee subsidies pose significant challenges on Government’s budget and are neither affordable nor sustainable.

At the same time, public institutions of higher learning are unable to generate resources by increasing fees because any such increases will correlate positively with Government’s obligations to these institutions. The resulting effect of such inadequate resources to tertiary institutions is perennial strike actions by staff members who are agitating for better conditions of service and poor service delivery to students.

It is against this background and the need to secure sustainability in the financing of higher education in Sierra Leone that His Excellency the President, Brigadier (Rtd) Julius Maada Bio pronounced the introduction of a Student Loan Scheme in Sierra Leone during his inaugural speech on 12th May 2018 and the State Opening of the Fifth Parliament. In 2021, the House of Parliament of Sierra Leone, passed the Sierra Leone Students’ Loan Scheme Fund ACT 2001, establishing the Scheme as a statutory instrument.