The Academic Staff Union of Universities has asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to convert the newly-assented Students Loans Act to grant for indigent students.
The President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, made the demand when he appeared on a Channels TV programme.
Osodeke, who spoke on the Sunday edition of: “Politics Today,” said: “This would have been better if we are giving it to those set of students who are very poor.
“It should be called a grant, not a loan.
“It should be called a grant since it is coming from the Federation Account and not that (after) these people have accessed it and when they are graduating, they have heavy loads behind them and within two years, if they don’t pay, they go to jail.
“That’s why we’re talking about collective bargaining.
“You have views from all the sides.
“The idea of student loan came in 1972 and it was in a bank established.
“People who took loans never paid.
“You can go and investigate.
“In 1994, 1993, the military enacted Decree 50 also set up a Students’ Loan Board.
“The National Assembly domesticated it in 2004 and within a year, it went off.
“The money disappeared.
“We want to see how this one will be different.”
Osodeke said with over one million students in Nigerian public universities, the loan cannot adequately cater for their tuition.
He equally said the conditions for the loan are “not practicable”, adding that more than 90 per cent of students won’t meet the “stringent requirements” to access and repay the loan.
He said: “We, as a union, also did research of countries all over the world, of people who have benefited from this loan.
“They were committing suicide.
“Recently, (President Joe) Biden is trying to pay back the bank loans of some who borrowed in the US.”
“It is better to look for alternative means of funding education than encumbering students whose parents earn N30,000 a month with a loan.”
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