Ahead of the rollout of the scheme scheduled to commence on
Monday, 26 February, the 11-member special committee chaired by Governor of the
Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso, held its inaugural meeting recently.
But according to a communique drafted by the office of the
executive secretary of the scheme, otherwise known as the Nigerian Education
Loan Fund (NELFUND), ASUU wrote to decline its membership of the special
committee.
Section 7 of the scheme’s enabling law- Access to Higher
Education Act 2023, provides for an 11-membership special committee chaired by
the CBN governor while the executive secretary of the scheme serves as the
secretary. Other members are expected to be drawn from the ministries of
finance and education, Nigeria Labour Congress, ASUU, committees of
vice-chancellors, provosts of colleges and rectors of polytechnics, Nigerian
Bar Association, NUC, among others.
However, the communique noted that while ASUU declined
participation, others with the exception of the representatives of committees
of provosts and rectors participated in the inaugural meeting.
Cardoso pledges commitment
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Cardoso charged members to use
their diverse skills to ensure the success of the programme which he said is
one of Mr Tinubu’s signature projects.
He said the ongoing engagement of various stakeholders must
intensify in order to achieve a hitch-free rollout of the scheme.
Mr Cardoso pledged his commitment and support towards the
success of the programme and praised the commitment of the President to the
scheme which he noted will reduce the burden of funding the education of
Nigerian students.
Access to Higher Education Law
In June 2023, Mr Tinubu signed the law that creates a legal
framework for granting loans to indigent or low-income Nigerians to facilitate
the payment of their tuition fees in Nigerian universities.
The primary objective of the Act is to foster the
accessibility of higher education for Nigerian students. President Tinubu has
asked that the scheme be extended to cover Nigerians undergoing vocational
training.
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) is the creation
of the Access to Higher Education Act, 2023.
NELFUND is the body created by the Act to handle all loan
requests, grants, disbursement, and recovery of the loans provided.
The Fund, according to the Act, is to be funded from
multiple streams and will engage in other productive activities.
It will also be funded through donations, gifts, grants,
endowment, and revenue accruing to the fund from any other source, according to
the Act.
ASUU’s rejection of Students loan
ASUU has consistently rejected the law which introduces the
scheme. The union accused the government of clandestine plans of starving the
universities of adequate funding, a development that has repeatedly caused
conflict between the union and the government.
The conflicts have also consistently led to academic
disruptions that have characterised the nation’s tertiary institutions for
years.
In 2022, for instance, academic activities were put on hold
in Nigerian public universities for eight months when about four staff unions
embarked on industrial actions to protest the government’s underfunding of the
institutions.
The unions are the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU), the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), the
National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) and the Non-Academic
Staff Union and other Allies Institutions (NASU).
ASUU, the largest academic staff union in the universities,
only suspended its strike when an Industrial Court in Abuja gave the order on
the prayer of the government. The government had also invoked a “No Work, No
Pay policy” against the workers for the period they were on strike.
Meanwhile, since the suspension of the strike a year ago,
students in Nigerian universities have witnessed a sharp rise in their fees
schedule even though the government maintains that the institutions remain
tuition-free.
Most of the universities hiked the fee by more than 100 per
cent, some of them in defiance of the president’s directive in July that the
institutions should avoid arbitrary increments of the sundry fees.
Despite students’ protest across many institutions, the fee
hike largely remains.