PANAJI
As many as 36 students availed the Goa government's interest-free loans disbursed through the State-owned Goa Education Development Corporation (GEDC) to pursue higher studies at universities abroad, mostly in Australia-New Zealand, the United Kingdom and USA in the three-year period between 2019-20 and 2021-22.
This is a miniscule under 2.5 per cent of the 1,451 students who took advantage of the State's student loan scheme for higher studies which caps the quantum of loan at Rs 8 lakh for pursuit of degrees in foreign countries.
Most of the students who took these interest-free loans for graduate studies within the State and the country did so to pursue degrees in engineering, nursing and hospitality streams.
According to the information furnished to the Goa legislative assembly by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who also holds the education portfolio, only 118 of the total 661 who took the loans in 2019-20 have repaid all the installments till date.
Just three students of the 476 who availed the loan in the following year (2020-21), have repaid installments regularly while the 324 who got the loans in 2021-22 are still within the repayment moratorium period as of now.
In 2019-20, sixteen students availed loans of Rs 8 lakh for foreign studies and the figure dropped drastically dropped to just four the following year, apparently explained by the fact that immigration was hit by the disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2021-22, students availing the loan to pursue higher studies in universities abroad again climbed up to 16.
The quantum of students pursuing higher studies in Universities abroad is much higher than the number who avail this interest-free loan and they fund it either through personal family finances or resort to borrowings from nationalised banks meet the much higher costs than the Rs 8-lakh upper limit set for the Goa government's scheme.
Meanwhile, the loans availed by the nearly 1,415 students to pursue their higher studies in universities and institutions here in Goa and other states in country are in the region of a few thousands and Rs 2 lakh, depending on the fees and other related costs of their respective courses.
