Students Loan Bill as panacea to funding education

It came as a welcome development to many that both chambers of the National Assembly have in good conscience and sense of purpose recently passed a bill that will enable Nigerian students in higher institutions of learning  to gain more access to financial assistance as contained in the new Students Loan Bill.

Sponsored by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, we have no reason to worry that President Muhammadu Buhari will soon assent to the bill thus marking a great departure from the ugly past of the history of education in Nigeria.

The issue of funding and budgetary allocations to the education sector especially to tertiary institutions of learning has been at the heart of every contentious issues attributable to the scandalous degeneration of the standard of education leading to the perennial face-off between the Federal Government and relevant stakeholders in the education sector top of which are the academic unions.

We commend the federal lawmakers for standing on the side of millions of Nigerian youths perhaps for the first time, which is what the Students Loan Bill signifies. The draft legislation has as its short title, the ‘Students Loan (Access to Higher Education) Bill, 2019,’ while its long title is ‘A Bill for an Act to provide for easy access to higher education for Nigerians through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Bank established in this Act with a view to providing education for all Nigerians and for other purposes connected thereto.’ Though passed by the House earlier this year, with the Senate’s concurrence, a clean copy of the all important Bill is expected to be transmitted to the President for assent any moment and once it is signed into law, Nigerian students could begin accessing the loans.

The Bill among other things seeks the establishment of the Nigerian Education Bank, which shall have powers to supervise, coordinate, administer, and monitor the management of students loans in Nigeria and receive applications for students loan through higher institutions in Nigeria on behalf of the applicants, screen the applications to ensure that all requirements for the granting of students’ loan under the Act are satisfied.

The bank shall also, have the powers to approve and disburse the loan to qualified applicants; control and monitor and coordinate the students’ loan account/fund and ensure strict compliance in respect of disbursement; monitor academic records of grantees of the loan to obtain information on their year of graduation, national service, employment to ensure that grantees of the loan commence repayment of the loan as at when due, among other functions.

The Bill further provides that notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in other enactments, all students seeking higher education in any public institution of higher learning in Nigeria shall have an equal right to access the loan under this Act without any discrimination arising from gender, religion, tribe, position or disability of any kind.

The loan referred to in this Act shall be granted to students only for the payment of tuition fees. The grant of the loan to any student under the Act shall be subject to the students/applicant(s) satisfying the requirements and conditions set out under the Act.

While it is an established fact that investment in the education sector of any country is directly related to the social, economic and technological growth as well as development of human capital, the Nigerian state has continuously downgraded commitment in this direction with the incumbent President Buhari administration not making pretense about its lack of serious attention to the sector and by implication to the youths of the country.

Sadly, even when the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked on a protracted strike to protest the poor funding of the education sector in comparative scale of what obtains in other jurisdictions, they were ignored for as long as it took the government to remember. Furthermore, we note that a report released recently by an advocacy group, Invictus Africa showed that the educational sector received its lowest budgetary allocation in 2022 since the All Progressives Congress, APC-led government assumed power on May 29, 2015.

The report entitled, “Data and Analysis of the Federal Government of Nigeria’s Budgetary Allocation to Education between 2015 and 2022,” pegged the federal government’s budgetary allocation to education at 5.39 percent, accounting for N923.79 billion out of the total budget of N17.13 trillion. Regrettably, it revealed that the 5.39 percent was a 50 percent reduction from the 10.79 percent allocated to education in 2015. This is being expended on personnel (N662.7 billion), overheads (N38.8 billion) and capital expenditure (N222.2 billion).

We are of the strong opinion that it is never too late for the nation to retrace her steps in trying to find ways and means of being more responsive to funding education in the country. It is a truism that the hardship experienced by the unemployed and low-income earners coupled with the very high cost of living in Nigeria over the years have made access to quality higher education extremely difficult, stressful and in some cases impossible for many Nigerians hence our applause to the lawmakers for passing the Student Loan Bill.

Since education is recognized as the bedrock of societal transformation, it should be noted that a well-educated citizenry is critical to national development and the nation’s ability to compete in the global economy, it is our belief that higher education should be regarded as a public good benefiting the entire country rather than viewed as a commodity solely benefiting the individual recipients. This bill, no doubt is in tandem with national interest and the quest in ensuring access to higher education.  We therefore congratulate the National Assembly for agreeing to prescribe a legislation that will guarantee access to quality higher education by qualified Nigerians.

For a better society

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