The Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) spent about GH¢ 600 million in the implementation of its portfolios this year, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SLTF, Dr Saadija Shiraz, has said.

The portfolios included the Students’ Loan, Students Loan Plus, allowance to teacher trainees, no academic fees, and free tertiary education for persons with disabilities.

“So this year, we have spent quite some money. In the next academic year, it is going to be a little significantly higher than that; we are looking at close to GH¢ 800 million,” she said.

Dr Shiraz disclosed this in response to a question during a joint press conference with the President of the Association of African Higher Education Financing Agencies (AHEFA), Dr John Machayi, at the Sixth AAHEFA International Conference in Accra last Tuesday.

The two-day event, which is being hosted by SLTF, is on the theme "Digital transformation in higher education financing: The role of technological advancements in ensuring a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient higher education financing system in Africa."

Attendees of the conference include academics, researchers, policymakers, and heads of higher education institutions.

Appreciation 

Dr Shiraz attributed the success of the initiatives to the willingness of the government to support the programmes.

She said last year, "We received more than GH¢1 billion in funding, and this is possible because President John Dramani Mahama has prioritised education and tertiary education financing as a key pillar of his Reset Agenda."

On projections for this year, Dr Shiraz said for the No Academic Fee policy, the SLTF had so far disbursed 169,000 to students and “our projection is 175,000 students."

She said the trust fund was deploying technology to facilitate its work.

On mismatched names and data, the CEO advised beneficiaries to upload their affidavits onto the SLTF portal for verification, confirming their status as students before they could be processed for disbursement. 

2026/27 Projection

Dr Shiraz said, based on a 25 percent upward projection, the SLTF was targeting close to 200,000 beneficiaries for the 2026-2027 academic year.

“We are also looking at close to 80,000 loan applications.

So in the next academic year alone, we will be hitting about 300,000 beneficiaries for our loan projects, especially because in this academic year, we will be restructuring and reintroducing our digital product loan scheme to enable students to get financing from the fund to buy digital products,” she added.

Dr Shiraz said, beginning this academic year, the trust fund’s loan systems would be fully digitalised, where loan agreements would be signed online to make access to student financing much easier.

Education funding

For his part, Dr Machayi entreated African governments to see funding of higher education as investment in human capital.

“The responsibility is with the student financing agencies to finance the skills that are required in the country. We need to churn out graduates who are assets to our respective governments,” he said.

Dr Machayi also acknowledged that technology was an enabler, adding that central to technology was data.

“We need deeper conversations around numbers because it is very critical,” he said.