The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Students Loan Fund and Access to Higher Education has said it is working to propose an increase of 3% as against an initial 1% for students loan from revenue generated annually as recently announced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Chairman of the Ad-Hoc committee Hon Terseer Ugboh made the revelation during a public hearing to ascertain the level of progress made so far by the presidential committee put together to remove all legal encumbrances hindering access to the loan by Nigerian students.
According to the Chairman, while addressing the Federal Ministry of Education and the Implementation Committee said lawmakers are ready to provide genuine intervention for the speedy take-off of the scheme.
Ugbor expressed displeasure with the slow implementation of the Students Loan Programme which would have also cushioned the effects of fuel subsidy removal and asked the implementers to ensure there was fairness in distribution.
“We hope the system you are creating will be robust enough to take account of students who are already in school who want the loan to cover for the one year or two years of their schooling or students who are coming through direct entry.
“It seems to us from this perspective that 1% of the Federal Government Revenue as stated in the act would not be enough to cover students loans for a year given the Hundreds of thousands of students that we have getting admission every year and those who are currently in school who may wish to also apply for a loan to cover for other years of their schooling.
“I want to suggest that if there is the need to increase the requirement of 1% to 3%. Then propose that and we are ever willing to look at it.It is something that is quite critical. This is the area that the Ministry of education can also hold on for it to be jerk up to at least 3% of this revenue.
Now we are hearing the states or local governments may or may not permit that deduction so I think there may be Constitutional amendment before that 1% may be drawn. So if that is not done, the Federal Government can only draw from its own share of revenue which means state universities may be excluded if the State Governments do not agree to participate in funding this student loan from their allocation from the Federal Government.
“The issue of transparency is very key to a scheme like this. One of the reasons why many previous schemes (students loan) failed was the issue of transparency and commitment to executing these schemes. You want to create a system that is technologically enabled so that issue of godfatherism will be out.
