Again, ASUU tackles FG over ₦50bn student loan, says grants better option
Education
Again, ASUU tackles FG over ₦50bn student loan, says grants better option
Having signed the student loan bill into law on June 12, 2023, President Bola Tinubu announced in October that the scheme will come on stream in January 2024, with the Federal Government voting ₦50bn for the programme in next year’s budget.
The law was aimed at providing easy access to higher education for indigent Nigerian students through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Trust.
However, the academic union has severally stood against the policy, suggesting other initiatives that could have far-reaching positive effects on the targeted students.
Doubling down on the body’s position, ASUU president Prof Emmanuel Osodeke suggested that allocating the 50 billion naira as grants would have had more impact and be a humane investment in the education of Nigerian students.
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He made the argument while appearing on Channels Television‘s Hard Copy programme on Friday, December 15, 2023.
“If the issue is just ₦50 billion, why can’t we convert that ₦50 billion as a country like Nigeria to grants for the children of the very poor?
“Let’s give to those who cannot afford it, not give them as a loan that becomes a liability for them before they even graduate and not sure of getting a job.
“We are thinking of the Nigerian people, those who cannot afford it, those children who are in the villages whose parents earn less than N30,000 a month,” Osodeke said.
“If it is just about 50 billion, the Nigerian government should give that 50 billion as grants to the students rather than giving it as a loan that will encumbrance them in the future and could make them start going to crime, in order to pay for this loan,” he said.
Recalling previous attempts at introducing a student loan scheme in Nigeria, the union leader questioned its success, pointing out that such initiatives had failed on two occasions in the past.
“In such a country where you easily have access to Job after graduation cannot pay it back and they are suffering, or people committing suicide. Is it in Nigeria where the children are sure that even in 10 years, you might not get the employment that they can pay back the loan?” he asked.
Again, ASUU tackles FG over ₦50bn student loan, says grants better option
Education
Tinubu names Jim Ovia chairman of student loan fund
Tinubu names Jim Ovia chairman of student loan fund
President Bola Tinubu has appointed of a renowned banker and businessman, Mr Jim Ovia as chairman of the Board of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
This was announced via a statement issued on Friday by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Chief Ajuri Ngelale .
Mr Ovia is the founder of Zenith Bank and a respected business leader with a track record of benefaction towards nurturing and empowering young Nigerians.
He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Louisiana.
Part of the statement read, “The National Student Loan Programme is a pivotal intervention that seeks to guarantee sustainable higher education and functional skill development for all Nigerian students and youths.
“The Nigerian Education Loan Fund, the implementing institution of this innovation, demands excellence and Nigerians of the finest professional ilk to guide and manage.
“The President believes Mr Ovia will bring his immense wealth of experience and professional stature to this role to advance the all-important vision of ensuring that no Nigerian student suffers a capricious end to their pursuit of higher education over a lack of funds and of ensuring that Nigerian youths, irrespective of who they are, have access to higher education and skills that will make them productive members of society and core contributors to the knowledge-based global economy of this century.”
Education
WASSCE: Lagos govt to pay N1.5bn for 58,000 students
WASSCE: Lagos govt to pay N1.5bn for 58,000 students
The Commissioner for the Lagos State Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, Tolani Alli-Balogun, has said the state government will be paying N1.5bn to register 58,000 students for the 2024 West African Senior School Certificate Examination for this year.
The commissioner said this on Thursday while reporting the activities of the ministry in commemoration of the first year of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in office for the second term of his administration.
Sanwo-Olu took the oath of office for his second term as governor on May 29, 2023, promising in his inaugural speech not to let down Lagosians.
The commissioner, who spoke at the state secretariat, said, “The administration of Babajide Sanwo-Olu has never defaulted on the payment of WASCCE fees of all public school SS3 students in the four years of Governor Sanwo-Olus’s first term in office. The state government paid over N4.2bn between 2020 and 2023 to keep our promise of full payment of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination fees.
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“In the current school year (2024), the governor has approved the sum of N1,571,076,000 as registration fees and other cost for 58,188 SS3 students writing the West African Senior School Certificate Examination.”
Last year, the West African Examination Council, which conducts WASSCE, noted that it had concluded plans to begin computer-based examinations in 2024.
It released the results of the first-ever CBT exam, 2024–First Series, in March this year.
The analysis of candidates’ performance showed that out of the 8,139 candidates that sat the examination, 3,424 candidates representing 42.07 per cent obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects (with or without English Language and/or Mathematics).
WASSCE: Lagos govt to pay N1.5bn for 58,000 students
Education
Father arrested for helping son to sit UTME
Father arrested for helping son to sit UTME
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced the arrest of a man and his son in the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).
The man was accused of impersonating the son and helping him to sit the UTME.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed this while on inspection tour of the UTME centres in Kaduna on Wednesday.
He said the 2024 examinations were largely well conducted, except for few cases of impersonation, which became possible because some persons had multiple National Identity Numbers (NINs).
Oloyede warned against cheating in the exams, stressing that JAMB had improved its technology check on those engaging in all forms of examination malpractices.
The JAMB Registrar said, “For those who engage in cheating, they should know that it does not pay. The technology is helping us to check that.
“Across the country, most of the problem we have is impersonation. For instance now, we say we have NIN, we now have cases of people with two NINs.
Therefore, that has defeated the purpose of identity verification. We are going to take that up with NIMC, that there are people who have two NINs.
“We have a case of a father impersonating his son, sitting the examination for the son and I wonder. Are you not destroying your son’s future?
“Of course, two of them are now in custody. I can’t understand what the father will now tell his son when they are both locked up in the same cell. This happened definitely not in Kaduna, but I don’t want to disclose the state.”
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