The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Calabar Zone, has expressed strong reservations about the Federal Government’s student loan program, describing it as a ploy to enslave Nigerian students and keep them indebted to the country forever.
The student loan program, which launched last Friday, has already received over 3,700 applications from students across 126 institutions.
However, ASUU argues that the loan program is not the solution to ensuring access to higher education, but rather a burden that will lead to depression, suicide, and a loss of intellectuals.
Instead, ASUU proposes that the Federal Government provide subvention to higher institutions, which would bring about a positive turnaround in the tertiary education sector.
The union also condemns the indiscriminate proliferation of universities without adequate funding and calls for a renegotiation of the agreement reached with the government to adjust the salary structure for university lecturers.
Additionally, ASUU urges the Federal Government to conclude the minimum wage negotiation and deploy collective bargaining to address the socio-economic challenges facing Nigerians.
The union’s zonal chairperson, Dr. Happiness Uduk, emphasized that the loan program is not in the best interest of Nigerian students and urged the government to reconsider its approach to addressing the challenges in the education sector.