The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has transferred responsibility for coordinating the application and selection of beneficiaries of the Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere Memorial Scholarship Fund to the Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB), a move expected to make access to the scholarship more transparent, efficient and equitable.
The new arrangement will apply from the 2026/27 academic year after the Fund’s Board of Management approved the use of HESLB’s existing systems to identify and process students eligible for the scholarship.
The decision means students could benefit from a more streamlined selection process that makes greater use of academic information already available within government systems, reducing the need for separate application and verification procedures.
Speaking in Dar es Salaam yesterday during the launch of new guidelines for the scholarship scheme, BoT Governor Emmanuel Tutuba said the decision was reached at a meeting of the Fund’s Board in May this year.
He said the move was intended to make better use of government systems and improve the process of identifying students who meet the scholarship requirements.
“We have agreed to use systems coordinated by the Higher Education Students’ Loans Board. The system has the capacity to use academic performance information from the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA), enabling us to identify students with the required qualifications through a more efficient process,” Mr Tutuba said.
The arrangement also reflects the government’s wider push to improve interoperability between public institutions so that information can be shared and used more efficiently in delivering services to citizens.
Mr Tutuba said HESLB’s experience in processing student information for higher education loans made it well placed to take on the additional responsibility.
“Since the Loans Board’s system already processes student information and identifies those eligible for loans, we saw it as appropriate to use the same approach to identify beneficiaries of the Mwalimu Nyerere Fund,” he said.
For students and families, the change could reduce some of the administrative barriers associated with accessing higher education support, while improving the consistency of the selection process.
The Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere Memorial Scholarship Fund was established on October 12, 2009, to honour the legacy of Tanzania’s founding father by supporting education and human resource development.
Its continued use of public systems for beneficiary identification is expected to strengthen accountability and ensure that available scholarship opportunities are directed towards students who meet the established criteria.
HESLB Executive Director Dr Bill Kiwia described the new responsibility as an honour for the institution and a demonstration of the confidence placed in the Board by the Bank of Tanzania.
He said the partnership demonstrated the value of government institutions working together and making use of existing capacity rather than creating parallel systems.
“This cooperation demonstrates how government institutions can combine their systems and capabilities to improve services for Tanzanians,” Dr Kiwia said.
The new guidelines and the involvement of HESLB mark a significant change in the administration of the scholarship scheme, with academic data and existing government systems playing a greater role in determining who qualifies for support.
For prospective beneficiaries, the key expectation is that the new system will make the process easier to understand, more efficient to administer and fairer for students competing for limited scholarship opportunities.