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President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s revival of a loan scheme for indigent Nigerian students is a positive venture, despite the reservations expressed by some pundits about its workability. In a country featuring high poverty and low employment, such a scheme provides a window of educational opportunity for many people who otherwise would have been precluded.
Government of course needs to work out the modalities to ensure accessibility of the loan to as many candidates that need it; and also to ensure that the gain of the loan is not wiped out by high school fees, particularly in the light of information that government may introduce tuition to institutions that were hitherto tuition-free.
Beyond its desirability, the scheme should not be seen to be all that the government can do to facilitate citizens’ education at the tertiary level. Greater funding is still required to optimize the benefit of education as a tool for personal development and nation-building. And in any event, provision of affordable and quality education to all Nigerians is a responsibility of the government emphasized in the 1999 Constitution (as amended), as a fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy.
In this regard, Tinubu’s assent to the Students Loan Bill on June 13, 2023 was a necessary first step, and a welcome development that caused a debate in several quarters in the country, particularly academic and media.
One contention is whether or not beneficiaries of the loan will have job opportunities and adequate empowerment to pay back and thus make the scheme sustainable. Special Adviser to the President on Communication, Strategy, and Special Duties, Mr. Dele Alake, told the nation that the signing of the bill into law was in fulfilment of one of Tinubu’s promises made to Nigerians during the presidential campaign that he would bring back students loan with a view to enabling indigent students to access Federal Government loans to fund their educational pursuits or career as it is done in some developed countries across the world.
Essentially, the new legislation, which was sponsored by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, who is now the Chief of Staff to President Tinubu, is to help indigent students access higher education in the country with interest-free loans through the Higher Education Nigerian Bank. Alake dismissed concerns that the law would encourage inflation in school fees, saying both situations were unrelated.
To show his passionate interest and commitment to the spirit and letters of the new law, Tinubu has raised a committee made up of ministries and agencies to work out modalities for the disbursement of the loans, which he ordered should take off by September to October of the 2023/2024 academic session.
Indeed, helping indigent students to access higher education is crucial to national development. In many parts of the world, education is considered as a public good, making it a primary responsibility of government or public institutions to provide and fund. Germany and Sweden are examples of countries where the governments intervene in the funding of education of higher school students through loans.
In the abstract of his paper on the role of education in national development, Dr. Kingdom, E. Orji Maekae, Job of the Department of History and Diplomatic Studies, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt, Rivers State stresses the fact that a nation develops in relation to its achievement in education.
According to the lecturer, “This explains why contemporary world attention has focused on education as an instrument of launching nations into the world of science and technology and with consequential hope of human advancement in terms of living conditions and development of the environment. This is because education, in the life of a nation, is the live wire of its industries and also the foundation of moral regeneration and revival of its people.”
Keith Hansen, Fred Matiang’i, and Lutz Ziob in Human Capital: The Greatest Asset of Economies on the Rise published in
The East African on April 3, 2017 asserts that the skills, knowledge, and innovation that people accumulate are the greatest assets of economies on the rise.
The drafters of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended were obviously in agreement with the liberating role education plays in the life of a nation to have, in Chapter II (18), writing that (1) Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels; (2) Government shall promote science and technology; (3) Government shall strive to eliminate illiteracy and to this end government shall as and when practicable provide–(a) free, compulsory and universal primary education; (b) free secondary education; (c) free university education; and (d) free adult literacy programme.
By signing the loan scheme into law, the Tinubu’s administration has demonstrated its recognition of the potent contribution education can make in the task of rapidly developing Nigeria. While the government strives to fulfil provisions of section 18, it needs public support for the goal to be achieved for the benefit of the country and its people.
A fundamental condition attached to the interest-free loan is that it must be repaid. In other countries where such government intervention in education funding exists, the chances of recovering the loans are very high because of availability of employment opportunities for most beneficiaries after graduation, to facilitate repayment.
But in this country, chances of repaying are very slim because of the high level of graduate unemployment, both in the public and private sectors fuelled by harsh business climate in Nigeria, characterised by epileptic power supply, high-interest rate, insecurity, massive importation of foreign goods and poor purchasing power of the citizens and high poverty level, among others.
Government should ensure sustainability of the scheme by creating employment opportunities for the applicants, which will facilitate repayment. This could be achieved by making sure that the economy works, and the business environment is friendly to investors.
For the loan scheme to be successful and serve the envisioned national interest, the government must ensure that it is not encumbered by excessively complicated administrative procedures, and it must be open to all eligible Nigerians irrespective of tribe, religion and political affiliation.
The loan bank should be adequately funded for every qualified applicant to get the money; just as the government should be proactive against fraudulent practices that some beneficiaries may perpetrate to default on their loans. There is a need to consider other challenges facing the students that require money to tackle, such as feeding, accommodation and transportation.
It is important to review the nation’s education curriculum with a view to bequeathing to the students the skills that will make them employable in the contemporary job market. Successive administrations should see the policy as fundamental to national development and work to preserve it. All Nigerians have a duty to cooperate with the government towards giving education its deserved importance in the country.
