With the suggested scheme, he said, the government can pay a certain percentage of tuition to provide more Nigerians, access to tertiary education.
The Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), Is-haq Oloyede, has advocated a form of education subsidy to help Nigerian students afford expensive private universities.
Mr Oloyede suggested that the government establish a scheme similar to the National Health Insurance (NHIS) for tertiary education to subsidise the high tuition for students in private universities.
Represented by the examination body’s Head of Public Affairs and Protocol Fabian Benjamin, Mr Oloyede spoke on Tuesday at a one day retreat on the state of education organised by the Education Correspondent Association of Nigeria (ECAN) in Abuja.
With the suggested scheme, he said, the government can pay a certain percentage of tuition to provide more Nigerians access to tertiary education.
He said: “Before the coming of the NHIS in Nigeria, there were hospitals that were exclusively preserved for the rich. When NHIS came to be, a grade level 3 or 4 officer can enrol in any of the hospitals and he will be attended to.
“Why can’t we do something like that for education. So that subscribers who have enrolled, –their children can also attend some of these private universities. Most of them (private universities) have spaces that have not been taken, not because people don’t want to take it but because they cannot afford it.
“But when you come out with an insurance scheme where a subscriber can pick a university and from whatever he has contributed, the government pays a certain percentage of what is left. That way, the school fees can be reduced and you have a lot of these candidates attending these universities and then the government can now achieve the purpose for which the private universities were established.”
