• Begins students’ loan disbursement September
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Federal Government has hinted of plan to grant full autonomy for universities and hands off their funding.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejoh, who made the disclosure in Abuja, yesterday, said the decision was not as a result of the recently signed Students’ Loan Act, but out of the desire of the Federal Government to improve access to quality and affordable education.
“Whether we like it or not, the government can no longer foot the bill of public universities alone, and that was why we are having public and private partnerships in many of the engagements. For now, the universities enjoy some level of autonomy, except financial autonomy. But answers to the issue of financial autonomy will be provided soon, and that will be when the institutions would be at liberty to decide on tuition fees,” he said.
On the recently signed students’ loan, Adejoh explained that the content and working conditions of the document would be made available to Nigerians soon.
The bill sponsored by former Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, provides for interest-free loans to indigent Nigerian students.
Adejoh said: “So far, only three persons, namely, the president, his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila and myself, have access to the signed students’ loan documents. So, the misinformation and disinformation about the document is expected. What is being circulated is the bill that was passed by the House of Representatives and not the signed Act. Work is ongoing to fine-tune the documents, it will be gazetted soon by the Ministry of Justice and operational manual will be release soon with full details of the scheme.”
He, however, said an inter-ministerial committee has been constituted to fine-tune the documents. He said the committee is expected to study the existing and past loan schemes, pick out the faults and gains, build on them and proffer superior solutions so the new scheme can succeed.
“It’s no longer business as usual regarding the loans. In the past schemes, the number of defaulter were higher than the number of people that repaid the loans. Unarguably, the Act was designed to address the issue of repayment. Not only for public schools students alone, students in private schools are also eligible to benefit. The president has directed that work should be fastened, and possibly completed in four to six weeks, so that first batch of beneficiaries can be enrolled by September for 2023/2024 academic year.”
The permanent secretary further explained that the committee is expected to work out modalities for the implementation of the project, including the possible establishment of a bank outside the existing banks that would implement the project.
“There is a proposal for a new bank to be established to carry out the project. But the committee might decide otherwise after deliberation. But based on the Act, recommendation was made for establishment of bank to handle the project.”
Adejo said the law would provide easy access to higher education for indigent Nigerians through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.
The loan, he said, covers students in private and public schools.
He said Tinubu had also approved a committee made up of ministries and agencies to see to the fruition of the loan scheme.
According to him, the bill is to make sure every Nigerian has access to higher education through what we called the Higher Education Nigerian Bank.
“Learning from past mistakes, the bank is not going to be the type that will sit down and be collecting application loans. It will also perform normal banking functions and make sure loans are given because we had cases of loan recovery in the past,” he said.
Adejo said government would create a specialised bank for the operation of the loans, noting that there would be a tracking system for efficient smooth running of the loans scheme.
He said this would cover both students in private and public schools, adding that the government would also create a new bank for it.
“We are not going to use existing banks, we are going to create a new bank that will address this because we can’t use an existing bank. We don’t want to make it that only people who wants to go to public schools will benefit from it, private schools are paying tuition so you have to give them the opportunity. The loan is for you to get an education programme and get employed, then you start paying back. The loan recovery does not start until you get employed. Our current president today is a job creator from his experience in the private sector and he has given us policy direction and job creation is one of the things he is going to do, even though you cannot create job for every body.”