 Academic activities have resumed in the Cardinastic University for the 2020-2021 academic session. Returning and new students are coming on campus to discover something strange. A memo asking them to get their parents and guardians to sign a form guaranteeing they will be of good conduct. The school says students who demonstrate will be expelled. This is common as institutions attrition fees have been increased, but the state government says it will caution this with a scholarship and loan scheme. Joining us to talk about this is the Executive Secretary of the Cardinastate Scholarship and Loans Board, Ruan Hassan. Thanks for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. Let's first of all start with talking about the recent increment in school fees in the Cardinastate University. What's your view on this? The increment in tuition fee is not only in the Cardinastate University. It's actually an increment in all state-owned tertiary institutions in the Cardinastate. This increment is extremely necessary, it's long overdue. If we use the Cardinastate University as a case in point, since 2004, when the tuition fee for Cardinastate University was set at 26,000, it has never been increased. Of course, we know that there's nothing in 2004 to date that remain the same. Even when you want to study medicine, a course like medicine, we all know that you can't use 26,000 to study medical course. But what the government is doing is the government is trying to see how to bring this fee to a topa with reality, so that we don't subsidize for those that can afford to pay. The government has divided the student into three. We have the first set of students who come from wealthy home. Their parent can pay, even if it is one million dollar, their parent can afford to pay it. They've been paying it, they're paying it for their siblings in Uganda and Sudan and in Europe. So we cannot be subsidizing for them. We have the second set of people who earn a decent wage, but it may be difficult for them to pay this money at once. And that is why the state government institutionalized a two billion dollar educational loan scheme. Karnaset is the first sub-national to put this two billion dollar loan scheme into place. It's been on since December 2019. We have the last set of people. Those are the people that are indigent. These are people that even the 26,000 dollar cannot be paid by them. So government wants to identify them and make sure that we don't allow them to drop out from school. So the narration should move away from reduction of school fees, but to move into let's ensure everybody that is of school age and it comes from a poor home, let's ensure that they are able to go into school. And this is what we are doing. Karnaset has a social register that has over two million poor people. This social register has about 27,658 people that are in tertiary institution. So what we are doing currently is we are integrating this data into our scholarship database. So that once the student apply, they will be first tracked and it goes straight to the university to vet their studentship and immediately their tuition fees will be paid. So this tuition fee is not targeted at dropping people out of school. It is targeted at ensuring that it's there to make sure that Karnaset University begins to go towards financial autonomy while we ensure that those that cannot afford to pay government takes up the responsibility of paying them. Mr. Hassan, can you give us an idea of the number of beneficiaries of the various types of scholarship and loans that you've talked about? Is there a figure that you can share with us? Before now, we have a bus fee in place. Every student gets 109,000. As of February 2021, we suspended payment in view of this recent development. We had paid about 6,858 students. These students have earned 109,000. I will agree with me. There is no state in Nigeria that pays bus fee of that amount to a student. Karnaset has been paying this thing for years now. Now, what was happening is that once you write an essay and you qualify, you end this one night up with an irrespective of your economic background. So in view of this recent increment, we've decided to target our resources towards those that are needed. We are replacing the bus fee with the need-based local scholarship. So going forward, this need-based local scholarship is targeted only for those that are poor. And how do we identify them? People are meant to supply us their parent tax certificates so that we can try and do some economic rating to understand the financial standing of their families. If their parents are late, they should provide us with their certificate. Now, it has brought some interesting results. We've heard people, we've heard that a particular person, for example, who's annual turnover is 32 million and that person went on to apply for a need-based scholarship. So if you, I mean, why would such a person be looking for a need-based scholarship? So if you have students that are ending, they are paying 26,000. So if you have a family like, from that family that is in Kasru, you should also pay 26,000, government should subsidize for that person. You know, we need to begin to do selective, I mean, sorry, targeted subsidy in Nigeria. Let's target those that... Let's carry subsidy for everybody. Alright, nicely explained, you know, but just before we go, I want you to quickly respond to this. Would it, well, would you rather have the government subsidize education and make it affordable for students with this two billion Naira instead of giving these funds to, you know, as loans to the people that you mentioned, or you mentioned it now? So like I said, these categories, I've told you the first category, we're not subsidizing. The second category, I mean, the class people. I told you the people that are in a good wage, I mean, a decent wage. If these people cannot pay at once, there's two billion that they can go into, they can access to get to pay their tuition immediately and they can repay back later. So if a student is paying $150,000 now and $100,000 for returning student, it means you need about $450,000 in the life of his education. $450,000 in five years at single-digit, that student will pay less than $10,000, the parent will pay less than $10,000 Naira on the monthly basis for that student to go to school. So now, but the people that are poor, the indigent, the people that people are talking about will be dropped out of school. Our target for them is not loan. Our target for them is the need-based scholarship. So in that need-based scholarship, the funds are available. For them, whatever is tuition, we will pay for them. The governor, the Honorable Commissioner for Education and in my office, we've consistently informed the student that nobody will drop out of school on account of inability to pay, except if that person did not apply for that scholarship. All right, Rohan Hasan, thank you very much for joining us and we hope that we can extend this conversation to later time.