Kampala – July 12, 2022
The Executive Director, Higher Education Students’ Financing Board (HESFB) has announced that Tourism and Hospitality Programmes in Higher Education Institutions will be eligible for offer on the Students’ Loan Scheme. Mr. Michael Wanyama revealed this in a Press Release dated 18th July, 2022 just days before the Board opens the applications window for the AY2022/23. The Details from the press release below
Press Release
HESFB to Consider Tourism and Hospitality Management Programmes under the Students’ Loan Scheme
Kampala – July 12, 2022
At the 30th meeting of the Higher Education Students’ Financing Board (HESFB) that sat on 31st March, 2022, Tourism and Hospitality Programmes were approved by the Board to be supported under the Students’ Loan Scheme.
At the same meeting, the Uganda Hotel and Tourism Training Institute, Jinja, was approved to participate in the Scheme.
The Tourism and Hospitality sector has been identified by the successive National Development Plans including the current NDP3 and Vision 2040, as one of the fundamental pillars of Uganda’s economy and key growth drivers with the greatest multiplier effect. In the pre-pandemic season, the sector growth had hit as much as 7.3% of GDP and 6.3% of total employment.
Since inception, the Board has been supporting mainly Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programmes, except for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) who can undertake any programme of their choice under affirmative action. These include 3,606 Health and Medical Professionals, over 3,600 in Engineering and Technology, 2,252 in Science Education, over 1000 in Agriculture and over 2000 in other natural sciences.
The Board has also been offering other humanities programmes targeting PWDs including Bachelors of Speech and Language Therapy, Bachelors of Education (Special Needs Education) and Bachelors of Teacher Education with Special Needs under affirmative action.
We hope that with the support to training in the Tourism and Hospitality sector, Uganda as a country will be able to achieve the target contribution of tourism to total employment from 667,600 to 1,100,000 people as anticipated by the NDP3.
Following this release, Tourism and Hospitality programmes will be among the listed programmes in the oncoming Call for Loan Applications to the AY2022/23.
Michael O. Wanyama (CPA)
Executive Director