Kela seeks 6000 students´ info for failure to earn credit for financial aid

Students in secondary education who do not meet the minimum credit requirement for financial aid received a request from the national social insurance institution-Kela for further information.

The students were asked to reply to the Kela´s queries by September 28, said Kela in a press release on Friday.

Kela has started monitoring the academic progress of students in secondary education this autumn.

Through the monitoring, Kela checks whether the eligibility criteria for financial aid are met. For this purpose, Kela looks at the academic progress in the previous academic year (1 August 2022-31 July 2023).

Kela has sent a request for further information to 6000 students who are completing a basic vocational qualification or the general upper secondary school curriculum and who have not made sufficient academic progress. Students may receive a request for further information if they have completed less than 20 ECVET points or credits in the academic year 2022-2023.

The monitoring does not concern general housing allowance and school transport subsidy.

The student must mention the reasons for the unsatisfactory academic progress in the reply. If the student has made slower progress because of an acceptable reason, he or she may still continue to receive financial aid.

Acceptable reasons for slower academic progress include for instance the student’s own or a close relative’s illness, other difficult life situation or the completing of an exceptionally extensive study module.

The student will get detailed instructions on how to reply with the request for further information.

Financial aid payments to students who do not reply or whose reasons cannot be accepted may have to be stopped effective 1 January 2024.

Financial aid is seldom recovered in connection with the monitoring of academic progress. Financial aid is only recovered if it is discovered that the student has completed exceptionally few credits and has never intended to study.

Earlier in late August 2023, Kela took the responsibility for monitoring academic progress in secondary education instead of the educational institutions.