Higher education loans board in Kenya from the Islamic sharia perspective

Abstract

Education loans were introduced in 1952 in Kenya under higher education loan fund board (HELF). The number of applicants increased consequently causing problems in provision of loans by the government; in this regard, the government introduced Students Loans Scheme (USLS), which was governed by the Ministry of Education. USLS noted problems in recovering matured loans from the beneficiary. To deal with this problem, in July 1995 the Government of Kenya through Parliament established the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) to control the Student Loans Scheme. However, due to financial constraints, education loans do not cater for students studying abroad and those on self-sponsored programs. The scheme contains the element of interest which makes the product non sharia compliant, this is the research problem. Therefore, there is a need to seek an Islamic alternative model based on Islamic sharia. The research methodology to be applied in this study is the inductive and descriptive analysis methods. The Islamic alternative model are expected to help Muslims students to finance their higher education without destroying their faith, likewise HELB will continue funding education loan without hardship thus promoting financial system development and investment in human capital.