HCM CITY —Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has approved a plan to allow students with financial difficulties to borrow a maximum of VNĐ1.5 million (US$65.8) per month, an increase of VNĐ250,000 compared to the curent loan scheme to help students pay for their tuition and subsistence allowance since tuition and service and commodity prices have increased significantly.

Students with financial difficulties who are studying in universities, colleges or vocational training schools are eligible borrowers.

The new loan programme will come into effect on June 15.

Currently, the Bank for Social Policy, which is in charge of providing, monitoring and recouping loans, provides loans with an interest rate of 6.6 per cent per year.

The Prime Minister has asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment to allocate enough funds to the Bank for Social Policy to carry out the loan programme.

In the beginning of last year, loans for students were raised from VNĐ1.1 million per month to VNĐ1.25 million per month.

The Government began providing loans for students in 2007 to help students with financial difficulties to afford school tuition and daily needs.

According to the Bank for Social Policy’s representative, loans for students have contributed to the education development for young people in the country and helped ensure equality in education.

Also, the programme on loans for students has helped reduce poverty and develop skilled human resources for the country.

As of June last year, more than 3.4 million students with financial difficulties have benefited from the programme.

Lê Minh Tuấn from the Tây Ninh Province, who is a third-year student of HCM City University of Science, told the Việt Nam News that he was a beneficiary of the programme.

His family is poor, and their income depends on his father’s job as a worker for a rubber company in the province.

To have money to study at university, he relied on student loans, he said. - VNS