Page 69 - EW August 2023

as ‘phonics’, which teaches children to read sounds rather to shore up its losses by charging students levies and sundry
than whole words, were expanded; schools would be tested payments.
on how well they taught it. Ebenezer Obadare, Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Af-
When opposition to the proposals emerged, ministers rica studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the bill
did not wilt. Teachers and their unions loathed them. Mi- “recognises the unsustainability of that model and takes a
chael Gove, the secretary of state, became unpopular. He step towards shifting the burden of payment for education
welcomed the hatred and nicknamed opponents “the blob”, to the student and parents”.
which has become a catch-all term to describe any official Every student will be eligible to apply for a loan if they
or institution that opposes Conservative policy. have secured a university place and if her family’s income
Schools also avoided another common problem in the is below a threshold equivalent to about £850 (Rs.90,000)
British government: ever-changing ministers. Once a minis- per year. Obadare notes that the bill had been welcomed by
ter learns a brief, he or she tends to be moved on to another, the National Association of Nigerian Students and predicts
starting from total ignorance. Gibb has been in situ for ten an influx of applications from prospective students once the
of its 13 years in power. By contrast, the Conservatives have government infrastructure, including an education bank,
had 15 housing ministers in the same period. It is no coin- is in place.
cidence that housing policy has been chaotic in that time. Moses Oketch, professor of international education poli-
When it comes to standards in schools, the Conservatives cy and development at University College, London, says the
decided what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do reforms have the potential to address long-running funding
it, and then stuck with it. It is a rare example of consistency. problems in the higher education sector. “There are con-
The reason why Britain has been poorly governed for 13 tinuous strikes by faculty asking for better pay. By establish-
years is that the government has reversed course on funda- ing the education bank and the loan scheme, universities
mental questions so often. From 2010 to 2016, the Tories in Nigeria will likely be winners. Students are winners, too,
offered a vision of a small-state country inside the EU. After because, if this move ends up stabilising university finances,
2016, the party offered a flabby big-state vision with Britain then perennial strikes will disappear, and students can be
out of the EU. In schools, however, the Conservatives have assured of graduating on time,” says Oketch.
stuck to a course set decades ago. Repayment — which begins two years after graduation
— comes in the form of a 10 percent salary deduction. “The
NIGERIA good aspect of an interest-free loan is that it doesn’t saddle
New student loans legislation students with an ever-ballooning loan when they are not able
to make repayment due to personal circumstances,” he says.
SCHOLARS HAVE EXPRESSED HOPE THAT
Nigeria’s introduction of tuition fees and student GERMANY
loans will end the underfunding of its universities. Academic acquisitions
One of the first acts in office of new president Bola Tinubu
in June was to sign into law a student loan bill, seven years A FOR-PROFIT BILLED AS GERMANY’S largest
after it was first introduced to the country’s parliament. university, majority owned by a private equity firm,
Until now, higher education in Africa’s most populous has bought a London banking education provider
country (218 million) has been funded by the state and has with UK degree-awarding powers as well as a Canadian uni-
been free at the point of entry for students. But this was versity, as it expands an online model that features an AI
seen as driving the underfunding of the sector, which tried “teaching and learning assistant”.

AUGUST 2023 EDUCATIONWORLD 69