Graduates will soon require HELB clearance certificate to secure employment

Graduates will soon require HELB clearance certificate to secure employment

Higher Education Loans Board is working on a guideline framework together with Federation of Kenya Employers that would require graduate students who benefited from government financial support for their University studies to obtain clearance from the board before being employed in the private sector.

HELB is constituted under chapter 213A of the laws of Kenya also known as Higher Education Loans Board Act, 1995.  It was founded to help graduates who could not pay for their college fees on a loan basis.
The HELB clearance certificate indicates whether a graduate is servicing his/her loan or have completed repaying their loans. The HELB clearance certificates are going for sh.1000 whether you benefited from the loan programme of not.

Firms who did not disclose to HELB that their employee is a HELB loan defaulter are fined sh.3,000 per month for each defaulting employee.

A monthly fine of sh.5,000 is also levied on all loan defaulters not servicing their loans after a grace period of one year.

Currently only graduates seeking employment in the government both county and national are the ones required to obtain HELB clearance certificate.