ASUU Asks Tinubu To Convert Proposed Students Loan To Grant

The Academic Staff Union of Universities ( ASUU ) has urged president Tinubu to take a fresh look at the student loan ACT.

The union says the policy is not sustainable, and the conditions attached to taking the loan are not practicable.

ASUU president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, speaking on a television programme on Sunday, asks the president to convert the proposed loan to grant to poor students.

Tinubu assented to the loan bill last week, stipuating an interest free loan to students, payable  two years after its beneficiaries graduated.

Osodeke said the research by ASUU in other countries where such loans had been introduced, showed that  beneficiaries had been committing suicide as a result of the unpaid loans.

The ASUU president recalled that the stuident loan was first introduced in 1972, adding that loans taken from the bank set up for the loan were never repaid

Also, Osodeke said student loan was re-introduced in 1993 with the establishment of a loan bank, and that the national assembly domesticated the loan Act in 2004.

The ASUU president, however, said the fund lodged in the bank disappeared.

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Recall that, on Monday, Tinubu signed into law the Students Loans Bill in fulfilment of a promise he made during his campaign.

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.

However, the ASUU President said the loan is impracticable, adding that the loan is “not sustainable”.

Osodeke said, “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.”

According to him, there are more than one million students in Nigerian public universities and the loan cannot adequately cater for students’ tuition.

The ASUU President said the conditions for the loan are “not practicable”, adding that more than 90% of students won’t meet the “stringent requirements” to access and repay the loan.

He said, “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.”