By Tunde Yusuf

The Campaign for Students and Youth Rights (CSYR) strongly condemns the recent announcement by the Tinubu administration to offer scholarships to students from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to study in Nigerian universities. This decision is a gross misrepresentation of the reality of Nigeria’s education sector, which is currently underfunded, unstable, and deeply inaccessible to millions of Nigerian youths.

According to a press statement issued by Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the scholarship programme is expected to begin in the next academic year. However, the regime’s attempt to use this initiative to launder the image of Nigeria’s education system on the international stage is both misleading and insulting to Nigerian students who face daily hardships due to chronic underfunding and deteriorating learning conditions.

The Nigerian education sector continues to suffer from systemic neglect, Allocation to education in Nigeria remains far below 15% of the national budget, falling far short of UNESCO’s recommended benchmark. Across all levels, primary, secondary, and tertiary educational infrastructure is in a state of decay, with classrooms, laboratories, and libraries in disrepair. The shortage of teaching and learning materials, especially in science and technology, further hampers quality education. Academic calendars are frequently disrupted by strikes resulting from unpaid wages and deplorable working conditions. Lecturers and non-teaching staff are left to survive on paltry wages, even as they grapple with rising inflation and an unrelenting cost of living crisis.

More troubling is the rising number of out-of-school children, which UNICEF estimates at over 18.3 million. Tuition fee hikes across public institutions like universities, polytechnics, technical schools, and nursing colleges have pushed many more students out of school, deepening educational inequality. The situation is compounded by the anti-student policies of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), which have reportedly contributed to preventable student deaths in the pursuit of university admission.

Despite these realities, the Tinubu regime has continued to peddle propaganda, claiming that the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) offers a solution to students’ challenges. However, recent revelations by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the House of Representatives exposed that ₦71 billion out of ₦100 billion disbursed through the student loan programme is unaccounted for. A glaring indicator of corruption and policy failure. CSYR had earlier warned that grants, not loans, should be provided to students to cushion the impacts of subsidy removal and currency devaluation.

CSYR, therefore, calls on Nigerian students, workers, and all progressive forces to resist this deception and join the fight for a truly functional and accessible education system. We demand:

• Adequate and sustained public funding of the education sector.
• Free and quality education from primary to tertiary level.
• Direct student grants (not loans) to support learning and living conditions.
• Full democratic rights for students, including the right to unionise and organise.
• Reinstatement of all victimised student activists across Nigerian universities.

This moment calls for mass action, not just in the education sector, but across the entire working class, through coordinated strikes and protests by students, staff unions, and labour organizations. Only sustained pressure from below can compel this regime to abandon its elitist and anti-poor policies.