Amid several question marks, FG’s student loan scheme crystallizes
…New bank coming
…Tinubu hands September deadline
By Doosuur Iwambe
A fresh financial institution, the Higher Education Nigerian Bank, is to come on stream soon to anchor Federal Government’s students’ loan scheme.
President Bola Tinubu,on Democracy Day,June 12 (last Monday) signed into law the bill establishing the scheme.
His action came even as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and its polytechnic counterpart,the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) barely days later, pooh-poohed the scheme as wasteful, a disaster waiting to happen and further attempt to increase the financial yoke on the necks of parents and students.
Nonetheless, President Tinubu is said to have given relevant government officials, including top shots of the Federal Ministry of Education, warehousing the scheme, a three-month deadline (September/October) to ensure that the first set of indigent students begin to draw from the scheme.
The development has given the senior government officials grey hairs because,as of now,the scheme has no publicly known process from which a prospective beneficiary can feed off to access the loan,unless the Federal Ministry of Justice,which statutorily receives,studies,and gazettes legislations,does its work on time.
Of course, the exact loan amount is also presently unknown, though sources familiar with such schemes said there could be several figures or amounts to be drawn.
Apparently realizing some of the gaps in the loan scheme, President Tinubu is said to have raised a committee of officials from some unidentified Ministries and Agencies,in addition to the Federal Ministry of Education, to brainstorm and craft ways and means to practically birth the scheme as well as fashion out how to deal with issues associated with loan-taking, recovery and so on.
Inaugural meeting of the committee is billed for June 20 this year.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja yesterday, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Andrew David Adejo said that government is working out modalities to commence the loan scheme in September/October.
The Student Loan Bill, sponsored by the now-former Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, provides for interest-free loans to indigent Nigerian students. Gbajabiamila is Chief of Staff to the President.
The bill seeks to provide easy access to higher education for indigent Nigerians through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, the Permanent Secretary said.
Adejo, who was addressing journalists on how the scheme will run, revealed that President Tinubu has also approved a committee made up of Ministries and Agencies to see to the fruition of the loan scheme.
He said: “The Bill is to make sure that every Nigerian has access to higher education through what we called the Higher Education Nigerian Bank.
“Learning from past mistakes, the bank is not going to be the type that will sit down and be collecting loan applications, it will also perform normal banking functions and make sure loans are given because we had cases of loan recovery in the past.
“The Act, as it is, tells us the process, but as I speak with you today, the President has approved the committee made up of the Ministries and agencies and their meeting will be coming up 20th of June.
“The President has also directed that by September to October this 2023/2024 academic session, he wants to see recipients of these loans. So it is a very serious march for us. So, between now and then we have to figure out the process for people to get the loan.”
The Permanent Secretary added that there will be a tracking system for efficient running of the loan scheme.
He also said it will cover both students in private and public institutions, reiterating that the government will create a new bank for it.
Adejo stated: “We are not going to use existing banks. We are going to create a new bank that will address this because we can’t use an existing bank.
Applauding President Tinubu as a job creator, he said: “Our current president today is a job creator from his experience from the private sector and he has given us policy direction and job creation is one of the things he is going to do, even though you cannot create job for everybody.”
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According to him, as at June 12, only three people had seen the Act, which were the President, his Chief of Staff and himself.
“What you have seen is the Bill. The President has assented to the Bill, let us wait to see the Act and you get the Act when it is transmitted to the (Federal) Ministry of Justice to produce a gazette,” he said.
