President Bola Tinubu has signed the Students Loan Bill into law, in fulfilment of one of his promises to liberalise funding of education in the country.
This was disclosed to journalists yesterday by the President’s media team, led by Dele Alake, a member of the Presidential Strategic Team.
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According to Alake, who was accompanied by other members of the media team, including Tunde Rahman and Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, and the permanent secretary, Ministry of Education, David Adejoh, the new law is a fulfilment of one of the electoral promises of President Tinubu.
Asked if the new law will not encourage inflation of school fees, Alake said both situations are unrelated, adding that the idea behind the law is to help indigent students to be able to obtain education in the country.
“We are very happy to announce to you that today, just a few minutes ago, the President His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, signed into law, the Student Loans Bill and that Student Loans Bill, you all know what it entails, what it connotes the meaning.
“This is the promise made during the presidential campaign by the then candidate, His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that he will bring back the student loans issue to the front burner and today, that promise he made has been kept, he has just signed that bill into law, which henceforth, will allow or enable our indigent students to access federal government loans to fund their educational pursuit or career and this is how it’s done in other developed climes all over the world”, he said.
“So, this is a boom to our youths, to our students nationwide. Of course, there are prescribed qualification parameters and that is the proof of indigeneship of whoever is to be a beneficiary and other prescribed parameters will be there.
“Of course, there are committees to be set up, the members of committees drawn from various bodies to superintend over the efficient and proficient disbursement of this facility”, he explained.
When asked for the time frame for the law to take effect, he explained that the bill takes effect immediately, but the procedures are what the committees will superintend over.
Also speaking on the new law, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education, Adejoh, explained that “what the President has done goes beyond a symbolism, it’s a demonstration of intent in terms of how he wants to handle education as he progresses in his Presidency.
“Like somebody asked about procedures, once the bill has been signed, that is the most important thing. A bill tells you what should be done, the how it will be done is what we’re going to put together and the good luck is that we have experience already in this area. We already have the Federal Scholarship Board Scheme running.
“The difference this bill makes is that it’s going to be a loans board so that people that don’t have whatever reason, don’t qualify to be able to apply for a loan. I’m very sure the country has learned from recovery rates of loans and the experience we had will be able to guide how this federal students’ loans board will work.
“I want to congratulate the President and most importantly, congratulate us Nigerians because what we have now is that nobody should say money did not allow him to go to school. That opportunity will be there, it will be inclusive and it will be equitable,” he said.