The Education Rights Campaign Group, ERC has urged President Bola Tinubu to turn the student loan program into a grant for students who cannot afford it.
The group posited that if the bill is to facilitate equal and easy access to higher education, it ought to have been an inalienable right to everyone having early education from childhood to higher education.
Recently, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Access to Higher Education Act, 2023, also known as the Students Loan Act, a law providing interest-free education loans for Nigerians seeking tertiary education.
Speaking at a press conference in Ogba area Lagos State, the Education Rights Campaign Spokesperson, Mr Gideon Adeyemi said that the Students Loan or Access to Higher Education Act 2023 – whose aim is to ease the tension of poor Nigerian and to solve the age-long problem of lack of access to education that has plagued the country – would shut the door firmly against the majority of Nigerians seeking higher education and living below the requirements.
He said the conditions for the loan are not practicable, adding that more than 90% of students will not meet the stringent requirements to access and repay the loan.
Speaking further, he said the Students Loan Act is a means to commercialize higher education which can be detrimental to poor working class people and hinder them from accessing equal education.
Mr Gideon Adeyemi called on Nigerian Labour Congress NLC, Trade Union Congress, TUC and all other social organization to make a public condemnation of the captivation of this Act to lowest earning living Nigerians.
In his contribution, the Coordinator Education Rights Campaign, ERC, Mr Hassan Soweto said that the Students Loan Act is impracticable, unsustainable and a means to take higher education out of the reach of the poor in the country saying the loan cannot adequately cater to tuition fee for more than one million students tuition in Nigerian public universities, Polytechnic and College of Education.
He urged the government to improve funding, provision of free, functional and democratically managed public education at all levels and respect of democratic rights in all education institutions
