Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has canvassed the inclusion of students in private universities as beneficiaries in the Student Loan Scheme being floated by the Federal government.
Obasanjo made the call during the inauguration of the Asiwaju Onafowokan Coleman Wires and Cables building at Bell University’s College of Postgraduate Studies in Ota, Ogun State.
“The Vice Chancellor has spoken about the need to include students in private universities as beneficiaries of the Student Loan Scheme. I urge the government to listen to that and take heed to include them too. I doubt if the scheme will be run without corruption, that is another matter entirely,” he said.
Obasanjo – the proprietor of Bell University of Technology – opined that the loan scheme is crucial to the development of the society and the welfare of the citizens, arguing that excluding a group of people would be counter-productive.
Earlier, the Vice Chancellor of Bell University of Technology, Prof. Jeremiah Ojediran, had pleaded for the inclusion of private universities in the students loan scheme.
“That is how they excluded students in private universities from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and the recent decision to exclude them from the student’s loan scheme is unfair. These decisions were out of touch with the current realities of the society and the expectations of the people.
“Many parents struggle to keep their children enrolled in schools, whether public or private, due to the economic downturn in the country,” he said.
Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), Mr. Akintunde Sawyerr, declared last week that students in private institutions would not benefit from the loan scheme, at least for now.
He had argued that the scheme is a programme for social re-engineering and redistribution of wealth meant to assist the poor in the society.
According to Sawyerr, though parents of students in private institutions are also tax payers from which fund for the scheme is sourced, they should not be seen as being in the same financial conditions as many parents of students in public schools.
Also, fees paid in private schools are quite higher than what obtains in public ones, he added.