The Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu has said that the implementation of the student loan initiative will begin in January 2024.
Tinubu, who made this revelation in Abuja during the National Economic Summit 2023 held on Monday, October 23 had assured Nigerian students that the era of repeated strikes will soon be a thing of the past.
Recall that President Tinubu had while commemorating the June 12 Democracy day signed the student loan bill into law, as a fulfilment to one of his campaign promises.
The bill, sponsored by Femi Gbajabiamila, the Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives, now the Chief of Staff to President Tinubu provides easy access to higher education for deatitute Nigerians through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.
The capital for the program will be domiciled in the Ministry of Education and will only be accessed by destitute students of tertiary institutions.
Today’s announcement is coming days after Tinubu rejected the ‘no-work, no pay policy’ sanctioned by the past administration on members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
The university lecturers had embarked on an eight-month strike action to press home their demands to the Federal Government including the complaint about poor funding of schools.