Nigeria offers students loans - they want jobs

Freshers Aminu Sadiya and Mercy Sunday are concerned about taking the loan but not getting jobs after graduatingThere is a buzz in the home of Esther Abu, where mother and daughters have just heard about a new law that will see poor Nigerian families given loans to send their children to university.

For decades, fees have been kept low by the government to encourage enrolment in a country where many are poor and there is a high level of illiteracy. These conditions have led to incessant strikes, which saw universities closed for eight months last year - the ninth stoppage in 13 years. The zero-interest loan will be paid back as monthly deductions of 10% of the salaries of beneficiaries two years after they complete a mandatory post-graduate paramilitary service.

In the last survey, in 2020, one in three of those who wanted to work were unemployed, and millions of graduates were doing jobs below their skillset such as working as hair stylists."I know at least 200 graduates in my village who returned to farming after going to school because of no jobs," says Ayuba Mayah, a student at the College of Education in Zuba, Abuja.

Though Mr Tinubu has promised to halve the unemployment rate in three years by creating millions of jobs for young people, the new law is mute about graduates who can't repay the loan because they are unemployed. "They should just say they don't want anyone to access the loan," says Vanessa Macaulay, a third-year Mass Communication student at the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.

While it is hard to measure the financial background of students in public tertiary schools, many at the University of Abuja tell the BBC they are from low-income homes.

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