The Chairman of the Ad hoc committee on students’ loan to higher education, Terseer Ugbor has said that the student loan scheme will put an end to the issue of consistent strikes that has become a norm in Nigerian tertiary Institutions.
Ugbor, in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, said the scheme will be an indirect way to fund the universities and to support the smooth running of the schools.
“We are hoping that this loan scheme is also another way of funding the universities and ensure that the incidence of strikes as we have seen over the past decades in the country will be a thing of the past because student can now pay their fees and government can now support the school’s running efficiently
“The student loan is an indirect way of funding the universities because it means that there is little drop outs scenarios in the country because every student will be able to afford their education and this money is paid directly to the schools and not the students.”
Speaking on the issue of debt repayment and forgiveness, he said insurance have been proposed to cover the loans, adding that flexible payment processes will also be set in place.
“We’ve proposed that this student loan should be covered by insurance and then of course they should be some flexible repayment processes and room for debt forgiveness in case of say our arm forces service men, our national heroes and people who have exemplifies themselves in ways that the government considers necessary to forgive their student loans.
“We proposed that insurance should cover these student loans so that in case of the death of a student, the insurance company steps in and takes care of the liabilities of that particular student.
“Even in the case of abscondment because we believe that a lot of abscondments will happen in this kind of system, we try to reduce the possibility and with the structure we have put in place and with insurance put in place, they will play a good role in ensuring that these fees are not lost by the government.”
Ugbor also said the scheme will be fully automated to reduce human interference and contact, thereby making it seamless for the students.
“We have decided that the scheme should be fully automated, so it should be technology driven. We are currently building a platform that makes it very easy and seamless that go and register on this platform, upload the schools they are coming from, upload their admission letters and of course the invoice of how much their school fees will cost them for the duration of the entire program that they will be studying. The system will automatically access this information.
“The idea is to make this process as seamless as possible for Nigerians. We are working with commercial banks across the country, working with technology partner who will manage this process and reduce the need for human interference and contact as much as possible so that students that genuinely need these loans are students that will get it by merit and access it without having to know or need anybody apart from the basic guarantors.
“There are two models we are considering. First is the model that works with the exact school fees of the school you are applying to or we can do a flat rate model where the government decides that there is a flat rate of say, one million Naira per student and so schools will have to structure their school fees in a way that it doesn’t exceed the threshold that government is offering and if the school fees exceeds the threshold, you will have to look for alternative ways to supplement what the government has offered.
“We don’t want to discriminate against any student either in the public school or private school. we believe that there are parents ho have sent their children to private schools, not necessarily because they can all afford to do it. Many of them have done it to avoid the consistent strikes and the consistent challenges of schooling in public institutions.”
Chioma Kalu
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