The Tinubu Media Support Group (TMSG) says President Bola Tinubu is rebooting the country’s education sector with creative initiatives that will give it a fresh breath of air.

The group said this in a statement by its chair, Emeka Nwankpa, and secretary, Dapo Okubanjo.

“The education sector is one that the President Tinubu’s administration had since inception been quietly reviving for utmost efficiency in the last one year. Even the perennial agitation of tertiary institution’s workforce have been on the decline, resulting to peace on campuses, calls for strikes are also dying down,” the group said.

It attributed the development to the federal government’s decision to remove universities and other tertiary institutions from the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) payment platform.

It was noted that the IPPIS had been a source of acrimony between university unions and various administrations since its introduction in 2006.

“But what may end up cementing Tinubu’s place in history in this sector is the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELF), which started only a few days ago. But has received well over 60,000 applications from students of federal government institutions,” said the group.

It explained that Mr Tinubu had delayed the take-off of the interest-free student loan scheme to ensure it also covered students who may be more interested in skills acquisition than university education. The statement also mentioned that the ultimate intention of the move was to guarantee sustainable higher education and functional skill development for Nigerian students and youths.

The group added that the goal was to ensure that indigent students do not drop out due to financial constraints.

It added that the fund had a major impact on the development of tertiary institutions, staff, and students, pointing out that Mr Tinubu’s administration was also looking at addressing issues of out-of-school children and the need to boost secondary education.

The TSMG said, like Mr Tinubu, that it considered the situation of out-of-school children unacceptable, noting that the president had approved system-wide policies to reduce the number of school-age children roaming the streets.

(NAN)