Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
President Bola Tinubu has signed the Student Loan Bill into law.
An aide to the president, Mr Dele Alake, disclosed this to State House Correspondents on Monday evening.
The bill will enable Nigerian students to access loans at interest-free rates, easing the financial pressures on parents as well as helping to reduce the high rate of dropouts.
The Student Loan (Access to Higher Education) Bill, 2019, a.k.a a Bill for an Act, provides for easy access to higher education for Nigerians through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Fund established in this Act was sponsored by Mr Femi Gbajabiamila in 2019.
The piece of legislation passed second reading at the House of Representatives on May 25, 2023.
It will see the establishment of the Nigerian Education Fund, domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), from which qualified applicants can access education loans through commercial banks in the country.
Once codified will provide, notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in other enactments, all students seeking higher education in any public institution of higher learning in Nigeria equal right to access the loan under this Act without any discrimination arising from gender, religion, tribe, position or disability of any kind.
It shall be granted to students only for the payment of tuition fees. The grant of the loan to any student under the Act shall be subject to the students/applicant(s) satisfying the requirements and conditions set out under it.
However, this could mean that Nigeria’s heavily subsidized tertiary education may become a thing of the past.
To qualify for the student loan, the applicant’s family income must be less than N500,000 per annum. He or she will also have to provide two guarantors— Civil servants not less than level 12, a Lawyer with at least 10 years post-call, a judicial officer or a justice of the peace.
As for repayment, beneficiaries of the student loan must commence repayment two years after the completion of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.
It involves 10 per cent of salaries when employed, done through direct debit from the employer, while for self-employed beneficiaries, it is 10 per cent of their profit.
