Kampala — THE Government will next year introduce a loan scheme to help poor students pay for their university education, state minister for higher Education Gabriel Opio has said.

Under the scheme, the Government will pay fees for poor students, who will pay back when they start working.

Opio said the Cabinet had asked the Ministry of Education and Sports to prepare an implementation proposal as well as set the unit cost of various programmes at the university.

"This is a way of increasing access to higher education which has been a challenge. The Government will increase university intake in form of providing loans to students," he told Saturday Vision shortly after opening the Education Sector Review Conference at Hotel Africa. This year's theme is striving to deliver quality education and sports to children in Uganda.

"We are already working on the proposal and we shall table it to Cabinet as soon as possible," Opio said.

Cabinet has also declined to allow cost sharing at the university where students would pay for their accommodation, while the Government only sponsors the academic component.

"Students who excel should be rewarded. That is the practice across the world and it promotes healthy competition," Opio noted.

There are 109,794 university students in the country.