The President, Bola Tinubu, has been urged by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to change the new Students Loans Act to an education grant for indigent students.
The ASUU National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke stated this on a television programme on Sunday.
According to the ASUU President, more than 90% of students won’t meet the “stringent requirements” to access and repay the loan.
Osodeke said, “This would have been better if we are giving it to those set of students who are very poor, it should be called a grant, not a loan.
“It should be called a grant since it is coming from the Federation Account and not that (after) these people have access it and when they are graduating, they have heavy loads behind them and within two years, if they don’t pay, they go to jail. That’s why we’re talking about collective bargaining, you have views from all the sides.”
Recall that last Monday, Tinubu signed into law the Students Loans Bill in fulfilment of a promise he made during his campaign.
The bill, sponsored by the immediate past Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila and the current Chief of Staff, provides for interest-free loans to poor Nigerian students.
However, the ASUU President said the loan is impracticable, adding that the loan is “not sustainable”.
Osodeke said, “The idea of student loan came in 1972 and it was in a bank established. People who took loans never paid, you can go and investigate. In 1994, 1993, the military enacted Decree 50 also set up a Students’ Loan Board. The National Assembly domesticated it in 2004 and within a year, it went off. The money disappeared. We want to see how this one will be different.”
According to him, there are more than one million students in Nigerian public universities and the loan cannot adequately cater for students’ tuition.
The ASUU President said the conditions for the loan are “not practicable”, adding that more than 90% of students won’t meet the “stringent requirements” to access and repay the loan.
He said, “We, as a union also did research of countries all over the world, of people who have benefited from this loan, they were committing suicide. Recently, (President Joe) Biden is trying to pay back the bank loans of some who borrowed in the US.
“It is better to look for alternative means of funding education than to encumber students whose parents earn N30,000 a month with a loan.”
To further drive home his point, the ASUU President said beneficiaries of student loan initiatives in other countries were committing suicide over their inability to repay debts.
Prof Osodeke asked President Bola Tinubu to change the newly assented Students Loans Act to grants for poor students.
The Student Loan law provides interest-free loans to poor Nigerian students.
The loan repayment starts two years after the beneficiary completes the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC.
However, the ASUU President said the policy is not sustainable.
The ASUU president asked President to take another look at the new law, calling for a probe of the activities of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
