Nigeria: Loan Type Education Better Than Free Type Education.

The activities of educating and instructing; activities that impart knowledge or skills in Nigeria overtime have been in a doldrum yet, greater number of Nigeria’s population still wish to be educated, regardless of the quality and form it takes. Nigerian compatriots are one of the most educated people in the world and they can confidently rub shoulder with their counterparts around the world. The desire in every single Nigerian to be educated is unmatched and unearthed, which is why in spite of the level of poverty in the country, most parents will go to any length to educate half, if not the whole member of their family.

Regardless of this impressive views concerning the state of the affairs in the educational journey of Nigerians, there is a disturbing statistics that should snatch sleep away from every well meaning Nigerian who would want to see the fortune of the country turn a new corner. Report has it that 49.5 percent of Nigerians are uneducated, 25.5 of 50.5 percent are half educated while, 25 percent are poorly educated from primary through tertiary level. Over the past decade, Nigerians have clamoured and some section of the government advocated free education as the panacea for the teaming uneducated population and for the less privileged in the society who are most definitely eager to be educated, to at least, afford the luxury.

‘Free education’ as sweet as the words may sound in the ears of everyone isn’t the way out of the current situation Nigeria find itself. It is only a hit-or-miss measure intended to control a situation as serious as a heart attack, this is because the free education is hardly sustainable overtime, as a result of the trending cases of policy abandonment bedeviling our government. At least the X-ray of various States in the country which have in one time or the other implemented free education is enough to tell the government that it’s never a solution to get our less privileged children to schools. Probably enough to take them to school but certainly not enough to keep them in school since every new government is quick to change the existing policies and programmes of its predecessor to favour his administration.

The best solution will be to engage our commercial banks in collaboration with the government to create “student loans” that will cushion the tuition fee that have for so long prevented children of low-middle class citizens, from being educated in Nigeria. This soft loans will be accessible to as many student who are interested in schooling, from primary to tertiary and after their graduation, when they start working they will be able to pay back their loans. Of course this will be dependent on the ground that at the backend, government and other relevant stakeholders have to make job available for this Nigerians, if they are to pay back on schedule.