Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

There are around 10, 000 inactive students under the Tertiary Education Loan Scheme says Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

He says these are the students who are not enrolled in any program or study.

However, Sayed-Khaiyum says their loans can be reactivated at any time if they decide to continue with their studies.

“For example technical college students who took mechanical and electrical courses and may have been given a full-time job during their attachment period, we have people like that. So they may do an electrical course and they go out on a work experience and people hire them – so they don’t necessarily finish their course but they start working. But they can come back and finish their course under the same program, later on, should they wish to do so.”

Since the inception of TELS and the National Toppers Scheme, a total of 48, 579 students have benefited from the various scholarship programs.

Of this 43, 604 students are under TELS while 4095 are under the National Topper’s scheme.

To date, the government has spent a total of $747.2m of which $525.7m was for TELS and $165.9 has been spent on the Toppers Scheme.