By Femi Mimiko
I read the Students Loan (Access to Higher Education) Bill, which the President just signed into law. There are a few typos in the version I read; and it is safe to assume that these were properly attended to in the final version of the Bill that received the President’s signature.
A number of the items on the new law are worth noting. First is that the Nigeria Education Bank, to be established under the Act, is to be fully owned by the Federal Government.
Secondly, the resources for the Bank are to be drawn, largely, from ‘one percent of all taxes, levies, and duties accruing to the government of the Federation from Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Nigeria Custom Service (NCS)’; and this is huge, guaranteeing the viability of the scheme!
Thirdly, the Board is to be headed by a professor who must be a former Vice-Chancellor, presumably versed in managing such a student-based initiative.
Fourthly, ASUU is to be represented on the Board, and would thus be able to bring to bear on the operations some measure of the profundity for which it is well known.
Fifthly, the loans to be given to beneficiaries is interest-free, and meant for payment of tuition fees only.
Sixthly, in addition to students of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, those of technical and vocational educational (TVE) institutions established by government, are also covered. This is quite apt, as it would serve as a fillip to TVE, which is sorely needed in the economy.
Seventhly, the criteria for qualification and reasons for possible disqualification for the loans are very well laid out; and applications are to be processed through the educational institutions.
I make bold to say that this Act is reflective of what some of us have advocated for so long: that a robust student loans scheme be put in place, robust enough to ensure any bona fide student that requires some facility to pay their way through school is able to access such. It is gladsome that this initiative has received the attention of the new government. This is what we have always advocated, and is consistent with what is in place in many jurisdictions across the world.
I still reiterated this same point in The Pa Reuben Fasoranti (Afenifere leader) 97th Birthday Lecture, which I was honoured to deliver on May 12th, at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA).
Perhaps the most compelling implication of this scheme is that it would now make it permissible for all the tertiary educational institutions in the country, to charge for tuition. The current situation in which the schools are not allowed to charge tuition, and government is not making the funds necessary for them to operate available, is the very recipe for institutional decay, which has been the lot of our higher educational institutions these past decades.
The contentious issue of an effective repayment system that takes cognizance of the realities of our economy can be worked out in a future amendment, with a view to allowing a longer moratorium, before commencement of repayment. Same goes for the need to allow professors and chief lecturers serve as guarantors to intending applicants, for easier access to the loans for them.
The issue of the N500,000 income threshold that qualifies applicants can also be revisited, if it comes across as too stringent.
Everything considered, I am of the considered opinion that the possibilities of this paradigmatic shift in higher education funding in our country should be explored. I know that our Union; the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), is opposed to this idea; but I think its position, with due respect, is anachronistic.
Yes, the idea of a student loan scheme is not new, as there had been a Students Loan Board, and an Education Bank initiative, in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, which laws have now been repealed by the new Act; but a mess was made of both.
Let’s just hope, and see to it that this relaunch, as it were, works out well. Our dying universities would be greatly enhanced, if the intendment of the new Act is properly delivered.
*Femi Mimiko is a Professor of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ole Ife