The Nigerian government has announced a new date for the implementation of the Access to Higher Education Act, otherwise known as the Students Loan Law, recently assented to by President Bola Tinubu.
Since signing the bill into law in June, many Nigerians have criticised its introduction, describing it as a ground for the introduction of tuition fees in the nation’s tertiary institutions.
Meanwhile, despite the opposition to its implementation, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Andrew Adejoh, revealed at the time that the implementation would commence in September.
The implementation has, however, not kicked off as announced by Mr Adejoh.
But speaking at the 29th National Economic Summit on Monday, Mr Tinubu said the loan programme “must commence” in January 2024.
“By January 2024, the new Students Loan Programme must commence. To the future of our children and students we’re saying no more strikes.
“There must be a Consumer Credit Scheme which will have to come to effect as soon as possible.
“We cannot talk about anti-corruption when you have to look for cash to buy a car, when there’s no mortgage for homeownership,” he said.
The president in June 2023, signed into law a bill that provides interest-free education loans for Nigerians willing to acquire tertiary education.
The Access to Higher Education Act, 2023, otherwise known as students loan Act, establishes an Education Loan Fund to help Nigerians fund their higher education, while they pay in instalments two years after completing their participation in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.
The bill, first introduced in 2016 by Femi Gbajabiamila, the immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, was reintroduced in 2019 and received more attention from the National Assembly in November 2022.
It was barely a month after the end of an eight-month-long industrial action by the nation’s university workers’ union who had protested poor working conditions, among other demands.
The Act establishes the Nigerian Education Loan Fund which is expected to handle all loan requests, grants, disbursement and recuperation of the loans provided.
The Fund, according to the Act, is to be funded from multiple streams and will engage in other productive activities.
Its sources of funding as dictated by the Act include; one per cent of all profits accruing to the federal government from oil and other minerals; one per cent of taxes, levies and duties accruing to the federal government from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and Nigerian Customs Service (NCS); education bonds and education endowment fund schemes.
The Education Loan will also be funded through donations, gifts, grants, endowment and revenue accruing to the fund from any other source.
The fund is to be domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and managed by an 11-person special committee chaired by the CBN governor, the law stipulates in Section 5.
The special committee consists of the CBN governor as chairperson and a secretary to be appointed by the chairperson.
Members of the committee as dictated by the law includes; the ministers responsible for education and finance, or the latter’s representatives, and the Auditor-General of the Federation.