DAILY TRUST
The Ministry of Education has said the federal government can no longer foot the bill for universities.
The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Andrew David Adejo, said this at a press briefing Wednesday in Abuja while clarifying the Students Loan Bill signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Monday.
“Introduction of tuition fee is not arising from the act; No! Whether we like it or not, the government can no longer foot the bill for universities. That is why we are doing Private Public Partnership (PPP),” he said.
Responding to a question on if the act would introduce tuition fees in public institutions, Adejo said, “The universities already have autonomy, the autonomy they are yet to have is financial autonomy. It is when they get it that they can answer that question and the government is working towards that.”
The Permanent Secretary said the federal government was working out modalities to begin the disbursement of student loans in September because the president had directed that the first recipients of the loan must be available for the 2023/2024 academic session.
He said an inter-ministerial committee would be inaugurated on Tuesday to fine-tune the process for students to get the loan within six weeks.
He explained that the Act addressed the purpose of making sure that persons that get the loan pay their tuition, saying, “Without meaning to say what the committee set up would do, we don’t want to make something that only public school students would benefit from.
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