There is a lot of excitement inside Esther Abu’s house right now because her mother and her three daughters have just learned about a new law in Nigeria that provides financial assistance to low-income families so that they can afford to send their children as student to college.
The youngest of Mrs Abu’s children, a teen who often raps in her speech, will graduate from secondary school the following month. She is passionate about computer engineering, but she is aware that her mother, who is a single parent and whose income as a street sweeper barely supplies enough food for the family and needs to be supplemented by alms donated, primarily by her church, she cannot afford to send her to university. Her mother is a member of a church that provides the majority of her financial support.
Her oldest child finished secondary school two years ago and started working as a hair stylist almost immediately afterwards to help support the family, who lives in Mararaba, a congested suburb on the outskirts of Abuja.
Eunice, who is now 21 years old, says that when she was younger, she always envisioned herself working in the medical field.
Both now have a possibility, albeit a slight one, of renewing their aspirations, as the government has stated that it will grant loans to persons from such modest backgrounds to pay for the tuition payments that are associated with attending college. Despite this, there have been a lot of concerns voiced regarding the plan.
Since taking office at the tail end of May, President Bola Tinubu has moved swiftly to implement a number of reforms, including the elimination of fuel subsidies, the devaluation of the naira, and the dismissal of the head of the central bank as well as top security officials. His most recent initiative is to revitalize Nigeria’s faltering tertiary education system.
In a nation where many people live in poverty, and there is a significant degree of illiteracy, the government has, for many decades, maintained cheap tuition rates in order to encourage people to enrol in school.
The tuition for medical students at the University of Ghana in Accra is 3,500 cedis ($242, $308) per year, which is significantly higher than the tuition of the University of Lagos in Nigeria’s wealthiest state, which is only 25,000 naira ($32; $26) per year.
However, such low fees have not been matched by an equivalent amount of government support over time, which has resulted in schools having antiquated equipment, classrooms that are overcrowded, and poor salaries for lecturers and other staff members.
A graduate assistant at a Nigerian university makes 160,000 naira per month, which is equivalent to £570 or $725, while a professor at a Nigerian institution makes less than 500,000 naira.
Because of these working circumstances, there have been ongoing strikes, which resulted in the closure of institutions for a total of eight months in the previous academic year. This was the ninth strike in the previous 13 years.
The strikes and the lack of proper funding have destroyed faith in Nigeria’s public universities, which has resulted in many enrolling in more expensive private institutions or going to study overseas, particularly in Eastern Europe.
President Tinubu has granted colleges carte blanche to raise tuition costs, which the administration believes students from low-income households are now able to afford. This was made possible by the introduction of the loans.
According to the President of Nigeria, this plan “will expand access to education for all Nigerians regardless of their backgrounds.”
Two years after the recipients have finished their required post-graduate paramilitary duty, they will be required to begin repaying the loan with monthly deductions equaling 10% of their income. The loan will carry no interest.
Mrs. Abu asks in a hushed tone, “But what if they finish school and they don’t get a job?” The room falls silent as a result of her question.
Since the announcement of the program two weeks ago, it is a question that has been asked over and over again by students and their parents all over Nigeria.
There are a large number of graduates that enter Nigeria’s labour market each year, but very few of them are successful in securing employment.
According to the most recent poll, which was conducted in the year 2020, one in every three people who wished to work were unemployed, and millions of college graduates were working professions that were beyond their capabilities, such as working as hair stylists.
“I know at least 200 graduates in my village who returned to farming after going to school after going to school because there are no jobs,” says Ayuba Mayah, a student at the College of Education in Zuba, Abuja. Mayah is attending the College of Education in Zuba because she wants to become a teacher.
According to what he has said, he will not accept the loan in order to avoid having the weight of that obligation hang around his neck while he searches for a job when he graduates. Instead, he is currently pursuing a career in order to finance his studies.
Aminu Sadiya and Mercy Sunday, who are both attending the same college to study economics, have come to the conclusion that securing employment is their primary concern with regard to taking out the loan.
Ms Sunday, whose parents are farmers, is quoted as saying, “My parents did not think of a loan before they sent me to school; they will find a way to pay the fees,” and she is certain that her parents will be able to do so.
Even while Mr. Tinubu has vowed to create millions of jobs for young people in the next three years in order to cut the unemployment rate in half, the new law says nothing about graduates who are unable to return the loan because they are unemployed.
Those who choose to go into self-employment, on the other hand, run the possibility of spending two years in jail or paying a fine if they fail to repay the loan using 10% of their monthly revenues.
However, the loan is not made available to anybody and everyone; rather, it is reserved exclusively for students who hail from families that earn less than 500,000 naira annually.
In principle, millions of people may reap the benefits of this, but the requirements for obtaining a loan are rather stringent.
It will be necessary for low-income households to present bank statements to demonstrate their low annual income in order to meet the requirement that they do not earn more than a certain amount.
In addition to this, applicants are needed to furnish a minimum of two guarantors:
a senior civil servant who is also a lawyer with at least ten years of experience, a judicial officer, or a justice of the peace.
It has been pointed out that poor individuals in Nigeria are unlikely to know such persons, and even if they do, there is a small likelihood that such a person would be willing to serve as a guarantor for a loan.
Applicants are not guaranteed the loan even if they complete all of the requirements because the loan is contingent on the amount of money that is available.
“They should just say they don’t want anyone to access the loan,” suggests Vanessa Macaulay, a student at the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos who is studying mass communication for the third year.
The stipulations of the loan have been described as “not practicable” by the president of the universities lecturers’ union, who also added that more than ninety per cent of students won’t be able to meet the “requirements.”
However, some academics, such as Professor Mudashiru Mohammed, who heads the Education Management department at the state-owned Lagos state university, claims that despite the fact that tuition costs are only 30,000 naira (£34 or $43) per semester, many of his students are unable to pay for their education.
In a nation where the majority of people view government loans as a form of free money, he claims that the requirements were necessary to ensure that people paid up.
Students at the University of Abuja have told that the majority of their families have a poor income, despite the fact that it is difficult to determine the socioeconomic background of students attending state tertiary institutions.
Their schooling is paid for by their parents and guardians, who work as lower-level government employees, private security guards, and company drivers, respectively.
Even though, by Nigerian standards, these families do not have a lot of money, their combined incomes are frequently slightly beyond the threshold, making it impossible for them to qualify for the loan.
These families have already taken a financial hit due to the fact that the cost of transportation has doubled, and more lately, the cost of food has also skyrocketed.
Now, they will have to deal with tuition prices that have increased in certain colleges – which have been mulling increases since last year – by as much as 200 per cent. certain universities have been considering increases since last year.
The loan is only for the cost of tuition; it does not cover any additional costs, including those for housing and meals, which typically make up a larger amount of the overall cost of attending university.
If they are not contributing to the cost of anything, then what is the use of it? Who will buy books, pay for lodging, and feed us?” wonders Mrs. Abu after the commotion in her house has died down for some time.
Caleb Issac, a self-sponsored part-time student at the National Open University in Abuja, believes that the loans ought to have been made available to all students. “They should have made the loans available to every student,” he adds.
According to Professor Mohammed, this is not the first time that Nigeria has attempted to provide financial assistance to its students in the form of a loan. In 1972, the country’s military administration initiated a similar program, but it failed because the beneficiaries refused to repay the money.
Mrs. Abu opines that the president “maybe should have first concentrated on creating jobs,” and she says this.
According to her, her family is not eligible for the loan since there are not enough employment available, there are additional fees involved, and it is not clear what would happen to employees who are unable to make their repayments.
It is better for her children to learn trades and find part-time jobs, she argues, than for them to go to school and risk ending up in jail.
