On Monday, President Bola Tinubu signed into law a bill that will establish an education bank to provide interest-free financing to Nigerians pursuing higher education.

Dele Alake, one of Mr. Tinubu's aides, informed state house correspondents on Monday that Mr. Tinubu had approved the bill.

The bill, sponsored by the outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, was introduced in 2016 as part of measures to address funding deficits in the tertiary education subsector.

Mr. Gbajabiamila has been designated Mr. Tinubu's Chief of Staff, and he is scheduled to assume office on Wednesday, a day after his term as the speaker of Nigeria's green chamber concludes.

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The title of the measure is "An Act to Provide Easy Access to Higher Education for Nigerians Through Interest-Free Loans from the Nigeria Education Bank Established in this Act with the Purpose of Providing Education for All Nigerians and for Other Purposes."

In his platform as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Tinubu pledged to pursue the establishment of the education bank in order to expand access to quality tertiary education.

"We will implement a pilot program for student loans...This will increase access to education for all Nigerians, regardless of their socioeconomic status, he wrote in his manifesto, Renewed Hope. "At the same time, this will allow institutions to levy tuition fees that are more reflective of their costs. Due to the present unemployment rate and other factors, the loan program will have a maximum borrowing limit and must have flexible repayment terms.

Basic education in Nigeria, comprising the first nine years of schooling from primary to junior secondary, is free and mandatory in public institutions.

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In addition to the inadequacy of public schools, however, schools have implemented various methods to collect fees from parents by providing fundamental necessities such as desks, chalk, and infrastructure.

Also, public tertiary institutions have always claimed that tuition is free, but a variety of fees have been introduced to supplement government funding.

However, since education is on the concurrent list in the country's constitution, many of the 36 federating states have implemented tuition in their tertiary institutions, which many students have deemed unaffordable.

Education funding

Consistently, stakeholders in the education sector have cited inadequate funding as one of the challenges confronting the country's education sector, and this situation has led to recurrent worker strikes.

Education was allocated approximately N1.08 trillion in the 2023 budget. This represents approximately 5.3% of the total budget of N20,500,000,000,000,000, which is less than the UNESCO-recommended minimum of 15% for developing countries.

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Mr. Tinubu, however, believes that with the education bank in place, Nigerians desiring higher education qualifications will be able to afford fees that schools may soon implement.