By Cross Udo, Abuja
The Federal Government yesterday said that the Student Loan Scheme recently initiated by President Bola Tinubu’s administration will be funded through the Education Tax under the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS.
Chairman of FIRS, Zacch Adedeji disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Adedeji, who was flanked by the Executive Secretary of the Board, Dr Akintunde Sawyer, said the deployment of the education tax fund into the scheme is one way the government can be accountable to taxpayers in the country.
According to him, “This is in fulfilment of Mr President’s promise that we will make education accessible to all. This is one of the schemes that will apply the education tax that we will collect. So, this is a way of being accountable to the taxpayer.
“Because the essence of education tax is to consolidate and restore education integrity and quality. And in fulfilling that part of the Act, so, that is why education tax fund is one of the sources of funding by God’s grace that we’ll use actually to execute this laudable programme.”
In his remarks, Sawyer also assured that the process for applying for the loan would be devoid of human intervention as every action would be taken on an App specifically designed for the purpose.
He said the impending launch of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, is the bedrock that will operationalize the student loan scheme in Nigeria, adding that the government was keen to ensure that young Nigerians do not fail to acquire tertiary education just because of a lack of fund to continue their studies.
According to him, the implementation of the student loan scheme would enable Nigerians to pick a career trajectory of their choice rather than being forced to do something else because they were unable to acquire the requisite education due to the lack of funds
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Sawyer also affirmed that the loan would help to stem the dangerous journey undertaken by Nigerian youth across the Sahel to Europe in search of a better life.
The Executive Secretary disclosed that the school fees for successful applicants would be transferred directly to their institutions, noting that while every Nigerian was eligible to apply for the loan, only the neediest would be supported.
He said, “It’s a great opportunity to help solve an age-old problem that has been on in this dear nation of ours for quite some time. There are many, many people with great capacity and with the desire to improve their education. And usually, the place where that falls is when they get into the tertiary base.
“At that point, they have several options, either to go into the world of work with qualifications that are not necessarily optimal for them or to find ways of funding that tertiary space.
“Now when I say tertiary, some of it is academic. So university education is generally regarded as academic but this programme seeks to provide opportunities for Nigerian students who want to go into the academic side and get a university degree or perhaps want to go into the technical side and go and acquire some vocational skills and some vocational qualifications which are always needed in society, and also in the teacher training space.
“Because you know, without teachers, really none of us are going very far. We have to learn from others and we have to have teachers.
“So, this is a great opportunity for that applicant, and they are the ones that are at the centre of all of this. This act effectively the intention behind it is to ensure that the reason for not being able to go on and further your education at a tertiary level, is not for the lack of finance.
“This law seeks to bridge the gap between the desire to study and the capacity to go further. It seeks to bridge that gap that is created by lack of finance, and lack of funding.
“This intervention will affect the lives of many Nigerian youth because that’s usually the bracket as well to further their education. It will impact the lives of many Nigerian families because the onus to pay for education tends to fall on parents or families.
“Well, this act is going to enable us to intervene and support families particularly the needy. This act will affect the way society operates and functions.
“To give you a very small example some people have very tight choices between whether they go on to study further and get the opportunity to get a white-collar job for example, or they go into a blue-collar environment where they have to work with their bodies and their hands.
“There are many difficult choices people make people sometimes will have to go and do things they don’t want to do including crossing the very treacherous and dangerous Sahel to try and get themselves to Europe because they haven’t been able to get the education they wanted. So you know, we are setting this up to help us and help our society bridge that gap.”
He said that there will be zero human interference as the applicants will access the loan scheme through an application that will require their national identity card and their Bank Verification Number, BVN.
“What I want to say to you is that this has been done with a lot of thought. So in application and in applying for this loan, there is zero human intervention. In other words, there is an app. The applicant will go on to a portal, they will engage with that app.
“They will have to put in certain pieces of information which made them eligible, what is their JAMB number, and of course the tie into that their date of birth. Further pieces of information include things like their national identity number, and NIN, which confirms that they are Nigerians, this loan scheme is being paid for by Nigerian taxpayers. So it’s for Nigerians and the NIN helps verify and qualify them as such.
“Their BVN, financial inclusion because this scheme in itself will at some point, be able to empower students so we need to know they have bank accounts. We need to know where their accounts are to be able to access those accounts.
“It will also have their matric number, and admission number so that we can firmly establish which institution they are going to because one of the key elements of this is that once we’ve received applications and those applications are approved, the fees or the tuition requirements in terms of financials will be transferred directly to the institution.
“That in itself has benefits for the institution. Many students are struggling to pay their fees, their parents are struggling to pay their fees. There’s a very high dropout rate. So it’s one thing to get into a tertiary institution. It’s another thing to stay there for four years or three years. This scheme seeks to help people access and remain until they qualify or graduate.”
