An Act of Parliament to amend the Higher Education Loans Board Act, 1995
| PROPOSED PROVISION FOR AMENDMENT | PROPOSED AMENDMENT | OUR COMMENTS |
|---|---|---|
Clause 2 Amendment of section 2 of No. 3 of 1995 | The Higher Educations Loans Board Act, 1995 is amended in section 14 by inserting the following new subsections immediately after subsection (2): “(2A) The Board shall not reject an application for a loan under this Act only on the ground that the student has not attained the age of eighteen years. (2B) A person granted an education loan by the Board under this Act and who is under the age of eighteen years shall be required to have his or her parents or guardian as co-signatories to the loan.” | The main function of the Higher Education Loans Board (“HELB”) is to provide affordable loans to students in tertiary institutions. Currently, a student must provide his/her national identity card when applying for a HELB loan. This means that students under eighteen years cannot receive the HELB loans, as they do not possess identity cards. Sub-clause (2A) seeks to remedy this by allowing HELB to be issued to students of tertiary institutions regardless of their age. Such a proposal has the following positive effects: a. it ensures compliance with Article 27 (4) of the Constitution as students of tertiary institutions are not discriminated on the basis of age; b. the students’ right to education under Article 43 (1) (f) of the Constitution is adhered to; c. it ensures the parents of students (below eighteen years) don’t resort to alternative funding to pay school fees; and d. it allows for the oversight/supervision of the loan by an adult by providing that the students’ parents or guardians shall be co-signatories to the loan. |
The proposal stated in sub-clause (2B) is welcome as students below eighteen years lack the legal capacity to contract i.e., a child lacks the capacity to fully understand the purpose and ramifications of entering into a contract, and as such, having an adult as a co-signatory mitigates against the foregoing. |