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One of Africa’s fastest growing companies and leading commercial bank, Sterling Bank, has solved the problem of investing for value in Nigeria’s education sector.
The financial services provider shared insights on practical and scalable solutions at a briefing held to discuss the topic around creating value that attracts large scale investments in Nigeria’s education sector.
Speaking at the briefing, Divisional Head for Growth at Sterling Bank, Obinna Ukachukwu, explained that to invest rightly in the education sector, one must ensure that the productivity output of skilled labour coming out of the specific education programme being invested in must exceed the funding input over a period of time.
He used the occasion to laud the Federal Government for introducing the students loan scheme and insist the initiative is a welcome development in the education sector.
According to him, the moment you begin to underfund a sector that is supposed to drive skill acquisition that impacts economic productivity and development, the outcome of that underfunding will be sub-optimal skill development and as a result, one would create a productivity deficit that will ripple across every other sector.
He said: “If you want to guarantee the future of a community and nation at large, you have to educate your population in courses that lead to specific acquisition of skills that drive productivity and that are geared to endeavors that solve actual problems in the society, and not just the issuance of certificates.
“If you want education to work, you need to approach it in a way that ensures the education pays for itself. This is what the top institutions in the world’s top economies are doing – graduates of these institutions are creating value far greater than the systems that have produced them, and it is from the value created that endowments are created to fund the institutions and systems.
The focus should be on the outcome of education beyond graduates and certificates, but economic output.”
Ukachukwu mentioned that Sterling’s model has been to focus innovation, partnerships, and investments in projects that generate sustainable value for the educated individual, the community and the nation.
Speaking specifically, he mentioned Sterling’s ongoing partnership with Decagon which has successfully financed the training of over 600 market-ready software engineers in less than twenty four months.
The divisional head further gave examples of active innovations with Job Skillers, Nexford
University, Founders Institute and more. He also mentioned that Sterling has been actively developing solutions and creating partnerships that bridge the funding gap for students and educators, while ensuring that the output of these programs are ready to be absorbed by companies sourcing talent with skills that are in demand in industry, and will translate into the creation of value for the business and the individual.
“We have working students at Sterling, schooling in the university, and paying for their education from their work allowances. We have also created a banker’s certificate course that trains applicants on banking as a skill, to create industry-ready applicants.”
During the conference, he confirmed that Sterling has arguably the largest lending portfolio to Students in Nigeria, with financing in excess of N15 billion to the education value chain, anchored with our novel students loan propositions and training to upskill educators to ensure that as many of the needs of the industry are met across board.
Fielding questions during the session, Ukachukwu mentioned that the outcome of this model is a starting point for the bank to prepare to expand investment in the sector.
Renowned for its now famous HEART of Sterling strategy; which focuses major investments in the Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation sectors of the Nigerian economy, its irreverent brand voice and enviable talent management practices, the lender recently completed a major milestone towards the completion of its transformation into a financial holdings company with the relisting of its shares on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX).
Ukachukwu, described the recent Federal Government student loan scheme as the right decision by the Bola Tinubu’s administration and expressed the bank readiness to partner with government to ensure the success of the loan scheme.
