Students’ Loan Scheme Will Be Amended – Hon Ugbor

Terseer Ugbor is the chairman of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Students’ Loans, and member representing Kwande/Usongo Federal Constituency of Benue State.

In this interview with THE WHISTLER, Hon Ugbor said arrangements are being made for the scheme to take off in March after some amendments have been made.

He said some areas in the Act that have raised public concerns would be amended to ensure that the scheme will take off in the first quarter of the year.

Excerpts…

Why Has The Students’ Loan Scheme Not Taken off?

This Ad-hoc Committee was set up at the start of our plenary when we got inaugurated in the house to look at the issues and the complaints that arose in the students’ loans act that was signed into law by the president on 13th June. When we held our legislative summit on students’ loans in the House of Reps, we got reviews from the stakeholders from across the country who are involved in one way or the other in the education sector and the implementation of students’ activities and a lot of issues were identified as being obstacles to proper implementation of the scheme, and also a hindrance to the accessibility of that loans by the students who need them the most.

One of the issues that was raised was the issue of the limit of N500,000 as maximum income for a household before the children of that household can benefit from this student loan. We thought that was very unnecessary and that provision has been struck out. And then, there was the issue of guarantors that required that the student will bring a lawyer with 12 years experience or a civil servant at level this and that.

We also thought they were obstacles and were unnecessary to implement the loan programme. That issue has also been amended. Of course there was the issue of governance structure, how will these loans be done, will it be done manually, will it be done with technology?

I think it has been decided that the loan program will be implemented through technology. So, it is a technology compliant system where there is very little human interference in the implementation. So, students can just go online and load their information. The system will conduct the due diligence on the admission status of the students and the fees will be paid directly to the schools.

Some of the challenges we’ve had in the course of debating this issue of the student loan scheme was the objection to it by ASUU. Even when we held the legislative summit, ASUU was well represented. Amongst over 30 stakeholders that were gathered in the room, ASUU was the only organisation that got up and opposed the students’ loan scheme preferring instead that the government should continue the scholarship system that has not worked for us over the years.

Another academic union called CONOWA was also present that day and they supported the students’ loan program being implemented or proposed, and completely disagreed with ASUU’s position.

As a matter of fact, the president of ASUU in a recent interview on channels proposed that the N50bn that has been proposed to launch the student loan program should be converted into grants and distributed to students.

We all know the amount of corruption that has gone on in some of this distribution of grants and palliative to people and we completely disagreed with that suggestion.This is not a sustainable method. It is actually very unsustainable to practise this system.

Nigeria first introduced the student loan program in 1972. It ran successfully but it was eventually scrapped in 1992. It didn’t succeed so well because around the late 70’s when we had the oil boom, Nigeria introduced the free tuition system and of course it introduced scholarship schemes and all that. That led to putting more emphasis on grants and bursaries/scholarships. Now, this is Nigeria’s second attempt to introduce a student loan programme.

We believe that this program will be very necessary, very important. It will help in reducing the pressure on parents paying school fees for their children. It will ensure that the dropout rate in Nigerian universities is grossly reduced so that students are able to read courses that are more viable for our economy and the student graduates to be more employable based on the kind of courses that this students’ loan will afford them to study.

In our proposal in the National Assembly, we have proposed that a percentage of whatever is approved as a student loan to the student should be kept aside or given to the student as welfare to cover the cost of feeding and transportation and other necessities that the student needs to successfully study in the university.

I know that the government has also set up a committee headed by an executive secretary to launch the student loan scheme. We believe that some of the steps seen so far and the reforms that we have proposed in the national assembly under our committee would make the scheme better.

The Act Was Passed By The 9th House Of Reps. Are The Current Lawmakers Properly Informed About The Act?

The Act was passed by the 9th assembly. It was sponsored by a former speaker. I believe that engagements were held when the bill was in the legislative process. However, on the passage of the bill, it was clear to all watchers and all interested parties, including us in the 10th assembly, that the bill that was passed in the 9th assembly had some defects.

The executive arm of government also realised this because the president himself made some pronouncements in his independence day speech where he waved hindrances on all requirements for accessing the student loans.

In fact, what our committee has recommended is to completely repeal the current Act and re-enact it because the amount of reforms that we have noticed in the Act are actually quite a lot. The central bank of Nigeria who are major stakeholders in the current students’ loan Act also recommended a complete repeal and reenactment because it was filled with a lot of errors and a lot of contradictions. That is currently in the works.

We are hoping that once we resume for the 2024 legislative session we are going to consider the report from the committee on the scheme and see how we can propose amendments and bring it to the floor in partnership with the executive arm of government so that we can all be on the same page on how it will be properly implemented.

I am happy to say that from the steps they have taken so far in implementing the Act, it is clear that they are thinking in the same direction that we are thinking in the national assembly.

Do You Think Nigerian Students Need This Loan?

We held focus groups discussions with students across the country, we met with the Nigerian student unions, and from all our discussions with them, the students’ loan scheme is actually desirable to the students. During the summit, parent groups were also represented, and they agreed that the students’ loan scheme will be a necessary addition to our legislation.

Don’t forget that over the years, Nigeria had implemented the TETFUND, which is still in existence, which was dedicated towards infrastructure in the universities, which has been going on quite successfully.

Nigeria has also supported lecturers. Nigeria pays public university lecturers directly from the national purse. We’ve had strikes in this country where ASUU has gone on strike calling for improved funding for education.

The students’ loan scheme is one of the ways of supporting the funding of education in Nigeria because the student loans are paid directly to the universities

If I Ask You To Choose Between The Students’ Loan And Upgrading Education Infrastructure In Nigeria, Which Would You Choose?

The students’ loan is actually a way of upgrading the quality of education in Nigeria because it ensures that universities receive funds from these student loans to reinvest into the teaching environment, the learning environment, the learning aids, and teaching aids by lecturers.

Hopefully it also helps to increase even the salaries and the allowances of lecturers in Nigeria. So we are totally in support of this. This does not stop other agencies of government responsible for supporting education in Nigeria. It doesn’t stop their work. TETFUND is still in existence, supporting the infrastructure. What the students’ loan does is that for once, students are considered in terms of support for tertiary education.

What Becomes Of The Scheme If A Beneficiary Changes Identity And Abscond?

The scheme is going to be tied to the NIN, the national identity number of every student. The scheme is only meant for Nigerians. To identify yourself as a Nigerian, you have to have a Nigerian identity number. The students loan scheme is tied to students who have identities and is also tied to the BVNs, to the banking information of beneficiaries. So, to change your identity on the NIN is not easy, you have to provide evidence and reasons why you want to change your identity and this will reflect on all your identification points across different agencies of government.

So, we believe that because of how well the BVN and NIN data collection have worked, this will make it difficult for benefiting students to abscond because government can continue to monitor your banking transactions, monitor how well you are doing and the financial transactions and create a scenario where these funds can be collected.

It is a technology enabled scheme and the money is paid directly to the school. So, if your school fees were paid and you attended the school, you graduated and it is expected that after 2 years of graduation, you start to repay your student loans. We have tried to create it in such a way that payment is as easy and seamless as possible.

We believe that with these checks and balances in place there is a good incentive for students to try to repay their loans so that they can move on with their lives. But of course, we know that there are options for loan forgiveness, loan remodelling for cases where students may not find jobs after school or when there is death.

We are also hoping that the students loan scheme will be covered by insurance so when there is a case of default or death the insurance companies can come and offset these liabilities on behalf of the government so that other students coming behind can also benefit from this scheme.