The Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) on Thursday announced a procured consignment of 10 500 laptops worth over N.dollars 60 million meant for students.

NSFAF, in 2019, promised to procure laptops for students meant for e-learning during the hard lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the laptops are now ready for distribution to successful applicants.

Speaking during the handover ceremony in Windhoek on Thursday, Minister of Higher Education, Training and Innovation, Dr Itah Kandjii-Murangi stated that the outbreak of COVID-19 prompted the government through the ministry to engage public and private higher education institutions, student representative councils of various institutions, and key student organisations to discuss response strategies for the higher education sector.

She said it was resolved that internet devices (of 10GB data) per month should be provided to each eligible student, while the Namibia University of Science and Technology received N.dollars 2.4 million to upgrade its servers/storage facility as well as expand institutional bandwidth. The University of Namibia also received a boost of N.dollars 7 million to upgrade its servers/storage facility for its own use, and to assist other higher education institutions when so required.

The laptops procured, Kandjii-Murangi said, are for needy students, both NSFAF and privately funded.

She noted that 28 000 internet devices were acquired through Telecom Namibia and were distributed to students last year and both UNAM and NUST have successfully upgraded their ICT Infrastructure.

Kandjii-Murangi also pointed out that the initiative is particularly meant to assist students from marginalised communities, and therefore various higher education institutions and student bodies were requested to assist in identifying these students.

However, the students are given three options to access these devices, to either use their NSFAF loan, which will be repayable as per the NSFAF Financial Assistance and Recovery Policy; to indicate whether money should be deducted from their non-tuition fee and thirdly, for the student to pay for these devices in cash, with a discount of 50 per cent of the selling price.

Students are encouraged to log onto the NSFAF website and apply for their laptops before the due date, 28 October 2021.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency