Students’ loan initiative ‘ll make Nigerian studentscompete with world best – Gbajabiamila.

Students’ loan initiative ‘ll make Nigerian studentscompete with world best – Gbajabiamila

The Chief of Staff to the President, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila has said that efforts are underway to ensure the Students’ Loan Scheme take-off in January 2024.

This, he said, would ensure that Nigerian students access the loans “to fund their educational aspirations.”

Gbajabiamila spoke during the Convocation Lecture of Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH).

While delivering the lecture titled, “Empowering Nigerian Youths in the Present Day Economy” at the 35th convocation ceremony, the former House of Representatives Speaker stated that to make the process seamless, “applicants will apply online, be verified online, and be credited based on the verifiable documents and credentials they have submitted.”

He said: “The application system for the student loan programme is being designed so that there is no interface between the loan administrators and the beneficiaries. Applicants will apply online, be verified online, and be credited based on the verifiable documents and credentials they have submitted. Nobody will need to know anybody to qualify for these loans, so that access to this financing will be genuinely egalitarian.

“The student loan system answers part of the question of how to fund a quality public tertiary education but doesn’t answer all of it. Any serious conversation about the future of tertiary education in Nigeria must include thoroughly considering the ways and means of addressing the funding needs of public tertiary institutions beyond government subvention. In this regard, we cannot for much longer avoid the simple truth that tertiary education costs money, and the best institutions worldwide succeed, amongst other things, because they can generate significant sums through fees, investments, and other means.

“The simple truth is that for our institutions to compete favourably, we need more resources than are currently available to address the dangerous decline in the quality of scholarship and academic output and the graduates we produce from many of our institutions.”

He stated that in a perfect world, access to education would be a fundamental benefit afforded to every individual from basic through tertiary.

“And our learning centers will be majestic citadels of research and innovation, open to all who seek knowledge, regardless of means. But this is not a perfect world. In this real world, education is a commodity, and a quality education even more so. “Therefore, the central public policy challenge is the conflict between the competing objectives of access and quality. How do we fund a quality tertiary education without imposing costs that make access to quality education impossible for most people?

 “We require a programme of aggressive and sustained investment in education. Not only in the physical infrastructure of classrooms and lecture halls but in technology hardware and software to facilitate information exchange and innovation.

“In this new world we have found ourselves in, nothing has changed as drastically as the nature of work and how we measure productivity. Today, many skills that guarantee employment and a healthy income for previous generations have been made redundant by technological advances.

The Rector of the College, Dr. Ibraheem Abdul, said the institution focused on youth empowerment through its various programmes.

“Furthermore, to show how committed we are to the empowering of our youths, the management established the Industry Advisory Committee to enhance her dynamic role of producing technical manpower for the Economic and Social development of Nigeria,” he said.

According to him, when it comes to manpower development, technological advancement, and youth empowerment, the college has been at the forefront.