The planned college loan plan, according to the Academic Staff Union of Universities, will leave students perpetually in debt. Nigerians ought to be informed that the plan is a ruse to starve public colleges of money and a means of channeling public monies into private universities run by people with political clout and their allies.
ASUU released a statement on Thursday following its National Executive Council meeting at Niger Delta University in Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State. The union expressed surprise at the information it had learned about the administration led by Bola Tinubu’s broken promises to address the persistent problems that led the union to decide to go on a nationwide strike that would last from February to October 2022.
Nigeria’s administrations have consistently shown lip service to the agreements they signed with the union, which has unintentionally caused the union to become resolute in using industrial action to defend its rights.
Regrettably, the government has not carried out some of these agreements, such as the release of Earned Academic Allowance, the unprogressive renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement, the removal from the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, revitalization funds, and withheld salaries.
However, ASUU said that the Students Loan Scheme, which is being pushed by global money lending organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, will deprive public universities of funds.
“To be clear, the ASUU NEC has once again expressed its opposition to the Students Loan Scheme, which is being pushed by global financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF,”
“The student loan program will mortgage the entire university system and keep our promising students in a never-ending state of debt,” the NC further noted. The Education Bank project was killed after more than five years of operation in Nigeria due to unchecked corruption, nepotism, and other shady practices. Even if the plan could fail in some better-managed economies, there is no assurance that it will work
We demand that the Tinubu administration move quickly to carry out a second needs assessment in order to provide empirical support for our demand for significant intervention in our public universities.
