A Compulsory Research Report Submitted to Mzumbe University – Mbeya Campus College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Award of Bachelor Degree of Laws [LL.B] of Mzumbe University
The study aimed to investigate factors affecting good performance of issuing the students‟ loans using the Higher Education Students‟ Loans Board (HESLB) The population of the study involved HESLB personnel, students and staff in Higher Education. Judgmental / purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to get a representative sample. The sample size of 100 respondents was used. Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources using questionnaires, interview, observation and much in documentary review. Collected data were carefully checked and edited to ensure completeness accuracy, clarity and uniformity and finally analyzed. It was revealed that the existence of HESLB facilitates the growth of both a public and private universities. The scheme however is shown to be flooded with a number of challenges including; difficulties of identifying clearly the eligible and needy students; lack of proper means testing instrument, poor means of verifying the correctness and genuineness of the information submitted by the beneficiaries, issuance of interest free loans, period taken to process loans is to long as a result students received their payments while is too late and long repayment period. Although the legal frame work seems to be clear, its enforcement is not impressive for stakeholders to comply with. The study recommends that a well-planned sensitization campaign need to be instituted in order to bring awareness and the need for the public to contribute to the loanable fund pool. The criteria for granting students‟ loans should consider other qualitative factors to eliminate discrimination and effectively apply the “Equity Principle”. HESLB should also institute effective enforcement of the existing legal frame work and governed by the existing HESLB Act.