THERE seemed to be a renewed hope immediately Nigeria Education Loan Fund stated that over 60,000 students actually applied for its interest-free student loans. Over 30,000 applications succeeded and this is a milestone of the Fourth Republic. Sustenance will determine the long-term impact of the initiative, though.
Despite the 50 per cent success rate, the Managing Director of the fund, Akintunde Sawyerr, explained that applicants would be cleared subject to enough verifications.
President Bola Tinubu signed the Students Loans (Access to Higher Education) Bill, 2024, into law in April. The Act is an improvement on an earlier initiative, which was withdrawn because it was restrictive. The Act covers tuition and other aspects of student welfare. It accommodates a wider coverage of students in public federal and state institutions that do not charge fees and those in vocational training.
This should ordinarily be cheering news, given the poverty ravaging the land and the attendant hardship on students from poor homes. The National Association of Nigerian Students has welcomed it as the “way forward,” as have Tinubu’s cheerleaders.
But others have opposed the return of a policy scrapped four decades ago. Some, like this newspaper, seek clarity and a seamless, well-structured, and effective student funding policy, learning from the country’s past experiences and other countries.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities rejected the loan.
Moreover, the move is perceived as a precursor to charging tuition fees in federal universities and other higher institutions. Tinubu has once unambiguously declared that tuition-free higher education “is no longer realistic.”
A contentious provision is that a beneficiary will commence repayment two years after the National Youth Service Corps programme. It is unrealistic. The Nigerian Graduate Report 2022 found that 58.9 per cent of HND graduates, 49.55 per cent of OND graduates, and 39.75 per cent of bachelor’s degree holders, are unemployed.
The National Directorate of Employment says most Nigerian graduates remain jobless five years after NYSC. Multinational consultancy, KPMG, said Nigeria’s unemployment rate grew from 37.7 per cent in 2022 to 40.6 per cent in 2023 due to the high influx of job seekers – 4.4 million annually – into the market. The repayment plan is therefore doubtful.
Corruption, mismanagement, and non-repayment kill intervention credit schemes in Nigeria. A students’ loan scheme introduced in 1974 with advances repayable 20 years after graduation crashed.
In the United States, Forbes reported that Americans owed up to $1.7 trillion in student loan debt as of May 2023. Tinubu should imbibe the culture of meticulous planning. He needs to rationalise the federal universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education that the government has been recklessly establishing with no thought given to their funding.
Nigeria must reach into its past to recover its success in tertiary education. Then, the defunct regions and successor states awarded scholarships, bursaries, and grants. These were awarded for study at higher institutions at home and abroad. The Federal Government and the LGs also awarded scholarships and bursaries. This is a better system.
The way forward is to mobilise all tiers of government to return to that template. They should harmonise and build joint data banks so students can choose a scholarship, bursary, or loan. Technology-supported infrastructure should be deployed to ensure that no beneficiary gets from more than one funding stream. This will ensure that no qualified Nigerian youth desirous of higher education is denied because of lack of funds.
The government should encourage charities, faith-based organisations, and NGOs to offer scholarships and bursaries, just like CSR Reporters has been championing. Corporate organisations should be incentivised with tax breaks to offer grants, scholarships, and bursaries.
The student loan is a good idea, but not as a standalone panacea. Its implementation should be preceded by thorough planning, with realistic conditions, targets, and reliable funding sources.
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