The President’s assent to the bill is in fulfilment of one of his promises to liberalise funding of education in the country.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mr David Adejo Andrew,
flanked by the President’s media team, led by Mr Dele Alake, a member of the Presidential Strategic Team, disclosed this to State House correspondents, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja
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Other members of the President’s media team at the briefing, included Tunde Rahman and Abdulaziz Abdulaziz.
The Permanent Secretary said that the Students Loan Bill that has been signed into law is an interest free loan.
Asked if the new law will not encourage inflation of school fees, the Presidential Media Team leader Alake said both situations are unrelated, adding that the idea behind the law is to help indigent students to be able to obtain education in the country.
He said, “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.
Slake further stressed that the grant is solely for the purpose of creating opportunity for indigent candidates to get education.
Source: Vanguard
Your Law Clinic.
The Student Loan Act 2023.
Steps to access the student loan
The Student Loan Bill which is now Law officially known as AN ACT TO PROVIDE EASY ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION FOR NIGERIANS THROUGH INTEREST FREE LOANS FROM NIGERIAN EDUCATION BANK ESTABLISHED was Sponsored by Hon. Femi Ghajabiamila
Students applying for loan under this Act must apply to the Chairman of the Bank through their respective institutions upon satisfaction
of the following conditions:
(i) Student must have secured admission into any public Nigerian
University,Polytechnic, COE or TVET school
Applicant income or family income must be less than N500,000 per annum;Applicant must provide at least two civil servants as guarantors: of not less than level 12 years in service; or a Lawyer with at least 10 years post-call experience; a
Judicial officer; or a Justice of Peace.
Students who have defaulted in previous loans; found guilty of exam malpractices, felony, drug offenses will not be considered.
Students with parents who have defaulted in respect of previous loans will not be considered.
All Applications will be submitted through the Students Affairs Office of each Institution via a list of all
qualified applicants from the institution accompanied by a cover letter signed by the Vice Chancellor or Rector or the head of the institution and the student affairs.
Any beneficiary of the loan to which this Act refers shall
commence repayment two years after completion of the National Youth Service Corps programme.
(Repayment shall be by direct deduction of 10% of the
beneficiaries salary at source by the empioyer.
Where the beneficiary is self employed, he shall remit 10% of his
total profit monthly to the Students loan account to be prescribed by the Bank.
Dr George Ogunjimi
Principal Partner
Juris Republc Legal Practitioners.
12/06/2023.
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