Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said that students will be in debt for life if the proposed student loan plan is implemented.
Following the union’s National Executive Council meeting on Thursday at Niger Delta University on Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, a statement was released that included this information.
ASUU said that the Students Loan Scheme, which is being promoted by global lenders such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, will starve public institutions of funding.
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The statement reads: “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.
“NEC further observed that the students’ loan scheme will mortgage the entire university system and keep our promising students in perpetual indebtedness.
“If the scheme could fail in some better-managed economies, there is no guarantee that it will succeed in Nigeria where unbridled corruption, nepotism, and other unsavoury tendencies conspired to kill the Education Bank project after over five years of its existence.”
However, ASUU recommended that grants and scholarships be made available to students and the university system should reinstate the Needs-Based Budgeting System for increased efficiency if the State and Federal governments genuinely plan to uplift Nigerian students.
Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, the National President of ASUU, stated in the statement that the union opposed the significant increase in school fees and maintained that money taken out of the government coffers ought to go toward funding universities instead.
The body added: “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.”
