The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU adviced President Bola Tinubu to change the new Students Loans Act to an education grant for indigent students across the nation.
ASUU’s National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke gave the advice on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, monitored by Truth Live News.
Osedeke pointed that over 90% of students won’t meet the “stringent requirements” to access and repay the loan despite the fact that they are students.
His words: “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.”
Truth Live News had reported that Tinubu signed into law the Students Loans Bill which was top among his campaign promises last week.
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.
The ASUU President insisted that the loan is impracticable, adding that it is “not sustainable”.
“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.”
He noted that there are over one million students in Nigerian public universities and the loan cannot adequately cater for students’ tuition.
“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,” he said.
“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.”