The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee investigating the implementation of the Student Loans Act, Terseer Ugbor, has said the legislation will encourage students to take professional courses outside the conventional courses practised in the country’s educational system.
Ugbor, who is the House member representing Kwande/Ushongo Federal Constituency, made the projection during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday.
“We anticipate that the student loans will encourage students to read professional courses,” he said.
“So, rather than the general social sciences that we are really used to in Nigeria, with student loans, students who probably would have preferred to read medicine, engineering, [or] architecture, professional courses that are better employable in Nigeria will be encouraged under the student loan scheme.”
According to him, this is so that academia in the country can have more sciences and more technology-based courses that are more relevant to the modern and globalised economy.
President Bola Tinubu on June 12 signed the Student Loan Bill into law in fulfilment of a promise he made during his campaign.
The funds are to be domiciled in the Ministry of Education and will only be accessed by indigent students of tertiary institutions.
According to the act, students granted loans are to pay in instalments within two years after completing their participation in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.
Asked about measures to implement the loan repayment in the eventuality of strikes which are a common occurrence in public universities, Ugbor said the committee would account for such contingencies.
“If there is a national emergency where the entire country comes to a halt and there is no activity, then we will have to amend and shift as we move along. But we anticipate that through the student loan funding, universities get this funding directly.
“Issues of strike should be a thing of the past in Nigeria once the government ‘hands off’ funding of education directly and makes it more of a private sector kind of thing and makes it a relationship between the students and the school themselves,” he said.
Credit: Channels Television
