President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed the Students Loan Bill into law in fulfilment of campaign promise to liberalise funding of education in the country.
This was disclosed by the President’s media team led by Mr Dele Alake, who addressed State House correspondents in company of the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr David Adejo Andrew.
“We are very happy to announce to you that today (Monday), just a few minutes ago, the President His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, signed into law, the Student Loans Bill and that Student Loans Bill, you all know what it entails, what it connotes the meaning.
“This is the promise made during the presidential campaign by the then candidate, His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that he will bring back the student loans issue to the front burner and today, that promise he made has been kept.
“He has just signed that bill into law, which henceforth, will allow or enable our indigent students to access federal government loans to fund their educational pursuit or career and this is how it’s done in other developed climes all over the world,” he said.
He said the grant is solely for the purpose of creating opportunity for indigent candidates to get education.
He said the new law provides easy access to higher education for Nigerians through interest free loans to be obtained from the Nigerian Education Bank.
He said the new law provides that all students seeking higher education in any public institution in Nigeria shall have equal rights to access the loan without any form of discrimination arising from gender, religion, tribe, position or disability of any kind.
According to him, the new law stipulates that the loan shall be granted to students only for the payment of tuition fees.
Asked if the new law will not encourage inflation of school fees, Alake said the situations are unrelated, adding that the idea behind the law is to help indigent students to to obtain education in the country.
