Student Loans
The Bank plays an important role in increasing access and improving quality of both basic and tertiary education. This is achieved through investments in Education projects, Education savings program and efficient management of student loan and bursary schemes.
In 2021, the Bank undertook several initiatives including developing additional enforcement policies and collaborating with other partners especially the Ministry of Public Service and Labour (MIFOTRA) to increase new loan beneficiaries billed, outreach, and public engagement campaigns. In addition, to ensure streamlined legacy data on all beneficiaries, an extensive data cleaning exercise was conducted to establish the final dataset for recoverable and irrecoverable student loans.
Our Interventions
The Bank provides loans for higher education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and beneficiaries must be studying either in Rwanda or Abroad.
- A student is required to apply to the Ministry of Education through its agency in charge of higher education student loans and bursaries. Currently, the Rwanda Education Board is handles the management of applications and granting of student loans to successful applicants.
- After being granted a loan, a student then signs a contract with BRD for the disbursement and recovery arrangements.
The Bank is mandated to recover all mature loans from past, present, and future student loan beneficiaries.
- Any loan beneficiary is obliged to declare to her/his employer on whether he/she benefited from a student loan within 7 working days from the first date of employment.
- The employer is on his/her side required to inform BRD about the recruitment of a loan beneficiary within 7 working days after the employee’s declaration. The employer also has an obligation to deduct from the employee’s gross salary a monthly repayment installment following the repayment plan agreed upon between BRD and the beneficiary.
- The amount deducted from the salary is deposited on the relevant bank accounts of BRD and the Employer is mandatorily required to make monthly declarations of the repayments made.
- Similarly, any dismissal or resignation of the loan beneficiary should be immediately notified by the employer to BRD.
- The Concerned loan beneficiaries – are those who studied abroad or in Rwanda – on Government Student Loan Scheme since 1980, and who have not completed the mandatory repayment.
Minuza
Student bursary disbursement is facilitated throughout the entire process, from application to loan repayment, through Minuza, an internally developed student loan management system.
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