The nation’s education system, over the years, is confronted with challenges of inadequate funding, poor budgetary allocation, corruption and unstable academic calendar.
However, with prevailing economic challenges and high cost of living, many students and prospective ones are afraid of pursuing a university degree as the cost of education keeps rising.
Currently, most federal and state universities charge between N30,000 and N50,000 from a prospective student as an acceptance fee before being allowed to register, even though this cost excludes other expenses.
Worried by the challenges the education sector faces, the country’s President-elect, Bola Tinubu, in his acceptance speech, promised to give priority attention to education.
He assured Nigerian students of his administration’s resolve to reintroduce education loans and make credit facilities available.
Tinubu promised to reintroduce students’ loans to increase access to university education.
The student loan scheme is aimed at reducing the growing financial burden of higher education in countries facing severe constraints on public expenditure. It is a financial aid the government gives indigent students pursuing university or college degrees.
This practice, however, is not new in the history of the country’s education system. During the General Yakubu Gowon administration in 1974, students were eligible to apply for a yearly loan of N300; N400 or N500, which covered tuition, books, transportation and accommodation, depending on their programme or longer, and repayable within 20 years after graduation.
The scheme enabled institutions to meet their internal expenditure, while there was no record of strikes nor disruption in academic activities. The funds were made available to the universities directly and each student only received the residual amount after all necessary fees had been deducted.
Efforts to reintroduce the loan scheme over the years have proved abortive. Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, recently sponsored a bill to bring back the loan scheme.
It was titled, ‘Bill for an Act to provide easy access to higher education for Nigerians through interest-free loans from Nigeria Education Bank, established in this Act with a view to providing education for all Nigerians and for other purposes connected thereto.’
The bill is also seeking the establishment of an Education Bank to administer and coordinate the management of the student loan scheme.
Gbajabiamila said the hardship being faced by the unemployed and low-income earners coupled with high cost of living prompted him to initiate the bill.
He said: “It is time for us to start thinking outside the box. It is time for us to start looking at international best practices. Nigeria is not isolated from the rest of the world. We borrow ideas from the rest of the world, just like they can borrow from Nigeria as well. And then, we tweak those ideas to suit our peculiarities in our country. At the end of the day, we achieve more or less the same result.”
The beneficiaries, according to the speaker, are expected to begin repayment two years after their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Stakeholders react
Meanwhile, stakeholders in the sector were divided on the propriety or otherwise of the scheme. While a group faulted the proposed reintroduction of the student loan scheme, describing it as a deliberate ploy by the Federal Government to distract the public from the real issues of underfunding confronting the sector, others urged the government to build an appropriate template for the programme for public debate before implementation.
President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, faulted Tinubu’s decision, saying the union does not believe in the programme.
Osodeke argued that the loan scheme couldn’t bring the needed change in the university system. “Definitely, we don’t believe in the introduction of the student loan scheme.”
National Coordinator of Education Rights Campaign (ERC), a non-governmental organisation, Hassan Taiwo Soweto, advised Tinubu to shun the idea of introducing student loans, saying, it is not the way forward for tertiary education.
Soweto stated that the programme is prone to life-long indebtedness from those who benefit from such loans, citing the case of former President Barack Obama of United States of America (USA), who paid off his student loan in 2005.
“This is just an example of how student loans subject people to life-long indebtedness. We are talking of Obama, who is obviously rich, how much more ordinary Americans? Besides, America is a first-world country, while Nigeria is a third-world neo-colonial country, where jobs are not even guaranteed at the end of one’s graduation from the university. The consequence of student loans in Nigeria can be more devastating where students graduate for years and cannot secure a job that pays them enough to pay off the debt,” he explained.
Soweto advised the incoming administration to increase budgetary allocation to the sector to meet the 26 per cent global standard recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
“When this is achieved, the government should ensure that the money and resources are well managed, there should be in place, enforcement of democratic management of the institutions,” said.
For any meaningful development in the sector, Soweto advised the incoming administration to implement policies recommended by stakeholders in the sector.
On his part, Prof. Rotimi Olatunji of the School of Communication, Lagos State University (LASU) urged the government to exercise restraint in implementing the programme, but make elaborate and further consultation with stakeholders in the sector.
“One important thing that the government must consider is that the capacity to pay the debt is dependent on the ability to get employment. So, if that is ensured, students given the loans would have the opportunity to work and the repayment should be in piecemeal on the order of the workers when they begin to work,” he said.
Rather than reintroducing the student loan, Prof. Olatunji called for an outright free education, “because with the loan, you are putting more burden on the government giving the students resources to be following up on them to pay their debt. So, instead of this, the government should just give bursaries if they can not give scholarships because some of us enjoyed some level of minimal bursaries.”
He said many stakeholders are objecting to the student loan scheme for fear that the government may abdicate its responsibility of funding the sector properly.
“What the government can do to ameliorate the sufferings in the sector is to ensure free education at the federal university level and they shouldn’t bite more than they can chew.
“Another thing is that they should allow autonomy in universities. Also, I expect that all the arrears and gratuity that were denied by the outgoing government should be paid to the academic union,” he urged.