Tanzania government denies discriminating against private students

Dodoma. The government has today September 3 said that it does not discriminated against students from private schools when issuing university study loan.

Deputy Minister for Education Mr William Ole Nasha saidthat the main factors are stipulated in the regulations and students from the private schools benefit whenever they qualify.

"Being student in private school is not a criteria but what we do is a test to identify needy students," said Mr Nasha.

He was responding to a question asked by Ms Halima Bulembo (Special Seats-CCM) who asked why the loans board discriminates against private school students.

"There are those who were sponsored to go to private but we always ask them to prove that," added Mr Nasha.

Ms Suzan Lyimo on the other hand  asked why the government deducts one per cent in the loan as administrative fees.

"This fee is not deducted every year....it's actually a one-off. The management fee helps to follow loan repayment which has increased from Sh23 billion to Sh183 billion per year," added Mr Nasha.