Tourism and Hospitality Management Programmes to Be Considered Under the Students’ Loan Scheme

 

HESFB ED, Michael Wanyama

According to a press release from the Higher Education Students' Financing Board (HESFB), the board has approved the Tourism and Hospitality Programmes to be supported under the Students’ Loan Scheme.

According to the statement, the Tourism and Hospitality sector has been identified by the successive National Development Plans including the Current NDP3 and Vision 2040, as one of the fundamental pillars of Uganda’s economy and key growth drivers with the greatest multiplier effect.

Since it’s inception, the HESFB board has mainly supported Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programmes.

These include 3,606 health and medical professionals, over 3,600 in Engineering and Technology, 2,252 in Science Education, over 1000 in Agriculture and 2000 in other natural sciences.

The Board has also been offering other humanities programs targeting PWDs including Bachelor’s of Speech and Language Therapy, Bachelors of Education (Special Needs Education) and others.

Following this release, Tourism and Hospitality Programmes will be among the listed programmes in the oncoming call for Loan Applications to the AY2022/23.

Michael Wanyama the HESFB Executive Director said that Uganda will achieve its tourism goals through training in the Tourism and Hospitality sector.

“With support to training in the Tourism and Hospitality Sector, Uganda as a country will be able to achieve the target contribution of tourism to total employment from 667,600 to 1,100,000 people as anticipated by the NDP3,” Wanyama said.

In the pre-pandemic season, the sector growth had hit as much as 7.3% of GDP and 6.3% of total employment.