The Academic Staff Union of Universities warns that the proposed education loan scheme will trap students in enduring debt.
Following its National Executive Council meeting at Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, ASUU expressed astonishment at the reports received on the unfulfilled commitments of the Bola Tinubu-led administration in resolving the persistent issues that led to the nationwide strike from February to October 2022.
The union in Nigeria became resolute in its use of industrial action to defend its rights since successive administrations had just given lip respect to the agreements they had signed with it.
Regrettably, the government has not carried out some of these agreements, such as the release of Earned Academic Allowance, the unprogressive renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement, the removal from the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, revitalization funds, and withheld salaries.
However, ASUU said that the Students Loan Scheme, which is being pushed by global money lending organisations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, would deprive state universities of funds.
The statement read, “For the avoidance of doubt, the NEC of ASUU reiterated its rejection of the Students Loan Scheme which is being promoted by international money lending agencies such as IMF and World Bank.
“Nigerians should be aware that the scheme is a way of starving public universities of funding and a ploy to divert public funds into private universities owned by politically exposed individuals and their friends.
However, ASUU recommended that grants and scholarships be made available to students and that the university system should reinstate the Needs-Based Budgeting System for increased efficiency if the state and federal governments genuinely wished to engage in the lives of Nigerian students.
In a statement, ASUU National President Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke said that the union opposed the significant increase in tuition in schools and that money that was taken out of the government coffers should instead be used to support higher education.
It read, “NEC condemns in its entirety the wave of fee hike without inputs of the victims across our campuses.
“Daily scandalous reports of stupendous funds diverted from government treasuries at state and Federal levels reinforce our belief that resources available to the country could support government-funded university education –without excessive pressures on parents as currently done.”
It noted that many universities would have been brought back to a level where they could draw in international students and establish themselves as leaders in innovative and game-changing research if the Federal Government had stuck to the terms of the MoU 2013, which allocated N1.3t over the course of six years.
“We challenge the Tinubu administration to urgently initiate moves to conduct another needs assessment exercise to empirically verify our call for massive intervention in our public universities.
“It was the Federal Government’s response to a similar challenge in 2012 that gave rise to the aggregate sum of N1.3 trillion which the Government has since abrogated,” it said.
