Reimbursements under the government's No-Fee-Stress policy will officially begin by the end of June, the Chief Executive Officer of the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), Dr Saajida Shiraz, has revealed.
Speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show, Dr Shiraz confirmed that preparations were underway to ensure that first-year students receive refunds. "We were prepared to start reimbursement from next month," she said, assuring the public that the SLTF is not waiting for all applicants before beginning disbursement. "The way we intend to implement it is that we don't expect we would wait for all 150,000 to apply before we start implementation." To streamline the process, the SLTF has developed a dual approach to validation and payment. "We have taken the applications because we intend to reimburse, and of course, we need to take the banking information to facilitate that," Dr Shiraz explained. "But alongside that, we also have another portal that we call the tertiary institutions portal." This system involves close collaboration with public tertiary institutions across the country. "We've engaged them and then we've trained their staff, nominating two member staff from each public tertiary institution.
And they are concurrently uploading the data of admitted students," she said.
Validation is a crucial part of the process to ensure only legitimate students benefit from the scheme. "Anybody can go on our portal and apply, but how do you validate their studentship?
