Explainer: The Implications of the Nigerian Student Loan Bill
Nigerian students seem to not know the implications of the recently signed Student Loan Bill by the president. If they had a clear understanding of it, I am very sure they would not have welcomed the idea much less celebrated the bill. Let me explain why I believe this bill is a misplaced priority, as it fails to address our educational challenges and economic needs effectively.
Firstly, it’s important to note that catering for the higher educational needs of its citizens is not a constitutional obligation of any government worldwide; governments are primarily responsible for meeting the basic education needs of their citizens — basic here meaning primary and secondary schools. Furthermore, our country is currently grappling with a high unemployment rate, and the focus should be on finding ways to tackle this issue rather than exacerbating it.
Granting loans to students without addressing the issues of unemployment and debilitation or dilapidation in our public primary and secondary schools will only lead to the production of more underqualified graduates. (The resources that will be used to run this initiative could be channeled to our public primary and secondary school to ensure quality education, but Nigerian government has a reputation for neglecting their primary constitutional duties.)
Additionally, considering our poor track record of policy implementation, there is no guarantee that this policy will be effectively managed. We can observe similar flawed initiatives like TradeMoni and NPower from past administrations, which were intended to empower the youth.
One important aspect that students fail to recognize is the hidden motive behind the Student Loan Bill. The introduction of loans implies that students will now be required to pay tuition fees which contradicts and directly or indirectly nullifies Chapter 2 of the 1999 Constitution that prohibits government-owned schools at both national and state levels from imposing tuition fees.
With the implementation of the Student Loan Bill, it is likely that tuition fees will be introduced, resulting in students no longer paying what they currently do. For instance, if you currently pay N70,000 as school fees, this amount covers the charges imposed by the university. With the introduction of tuition fees as per the loan, you may end up paying two or three times that amount, as tuition fees can run into thousands or even millions of naira, depending on the chosen course of study, as is obtainable in privately-run institutions.
We do not know how much the spike will be, and we also do not know how much will be loaned to students as the bill did not spell out some of these intricacies. But the bill spells out that only indigent students whose parents earn not more than N500,000 per annum are eligible to apply and benefit from the school. Considering Nigeria’s multi-dimensional poverty index and the prevalence of poverty in the country, it raises concerns about the number of households that fall within this income bracket. This implies that approximately half of the households in Nigeria would potentially be eligible to benefit from the loan scheme. However, it raises the important question of whether the federal government possesses the necessary resources to adequately provide and sustain this initiative.
In a nutshell, basically what the Student Loan Bill means is that the Federal Government is giving students on one hand, and taking back what it has given them on the other hand.
