Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-12-05

Granting of Concessionary Loans to students to follow Degree Programmes

- In accordance with a proposal made in the National Budget of 2017, the Government has launched a project to provide an interest free concessionary loan facility subject to a maximum limit of Rs.800,000 to facilitate the students who were unable to secure admission to the state universities due to the z-score method adopted, to follow the degree programmes offered by the Non-Governmental Degree Awarding Institutions. To coincide with this, the Cabinet approval has also been granted to provide a loan up to a Rs.1.1 million to the youth who have passed the G.C.E. (A/L) so as to cover their general expenses as well, to follow the Degree in Education Programmes from the non-governmental Higher Educational Institutes.

As such, in addition to the expenditure to cover the course fee and the books through this loan to the youth who follow other Degree Programmes, a proposal has been made to add Rs.75,000/- for the other general expenses as well. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, the Prime Minister in his capacity as the Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs, to enhance the maximum amount of this loan granted under the programme to Rupees one million twenty five thousand (Rs.1,025,000) for a degree of 03 year duration and Rupees one million hundred thousand (RS.1,100,000) for a degree of 04 year duration, was approved by the Cabinet.