Story by Tapela Lungu
Zambia Union for Persons with Disabilities (ZUPD) president, Pascal Mulenga says that the government should include students with disabilities on the loan scheme.
Mr. Mulenga said that the government should take serious measures in order to promote equality among the abled and disabled.
“Currently we have discovered that the whole University of Zambia has no record of a person with disabilities being on government sponsored loan scheme.”quote in part
“In the recent sponsorship for the 2016-2017 first year students, about 2009 students were awarded with loan schemes.” It is really frustrating that out of that number no person with disabilities was awarded.” he said.
Mr. Pascal further said that a lot of disabled students came from poor families and they were faced with a lot financial limitations which in turn made them not attain a tertiary education.
And third year student from School of Education Memory Chibwe (not real name) said that the disabled students deserved to be on the loan scheme and were to be treated equal.
The University of Zambia admitted over 5000 students for the 2016-2017 and over 4,000 students applied for the loans and only 2009 students were awarded for the loan sponsorship scheme. Most of the disabled students attaining tertiary education are usually sponsored by non-government organizations or by the private sectors.