The Federal Government says it has paid the tuition fees of 20,000 students directly to their institutions in the ongoing Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) scheme.
Akintunde Sawyer, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NELFUND, revealed this on Thursday, while speaking during a summit and sensitization programme by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in Rivers State.
According to him, the fund had paid the tuition fees of 20, 000 students in six universities, including the University of Ibadan, University of Benin, University of Maiduguri, University of Ilorin, and Bayero University, Kano.
The implementation of the student loan scheme is President Bola Tinubu’s flagship project in the education sector.
The president introduced the fund when he signed the Access to Higher Education Act, which creates a legal framework for granting loans to indigent or low-income Nigerians to facilitate the payment of their fees in Nigerian tertiary institutions
Sawyer also disclosed that as of August 22, 2024, over 280,000 students have registered for the scheme, while about 256,000 have completed the application process.
He attributed some of the delays in approving requests for the student interest-free loan to errors made by students during the registration process.
While explaining further, he said filing wrong documents and false information prolongs the verification process, as the agency is committed to ensuring that only eligible students benefit from the scheme.
Representatives of Governor Siminalayi Fubara, Commissioner for Youth Development, Rivers State, Chisom Gbali, along with NANS leaders led by the President, Lucky Omonefe, Akintunde Sawyer, the MD/CEO of the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), VCs, students and Traditional Rulers, were in attendance at the summit.
The event, organised by the NANS National Secretariat in collaboration with NELFUND, aimed to educate students in higher institutions in the state about the loan scheme and to gather feedback from them.
During the event, the representative of Governor Fubara and the Traditional Ruler, HRM Nwachukwu Nnam-Obi (III) Oba of Ogbaland, Rivers State, who is honoured by NAN’S as the Royal Father of Nigerian Students, advised students to take advantage of this opportunity to excel.
NANS said it is committed to continuing sensitization efforts across higher institutions in Rivers State to encourage more students to benefit from the loan scheme.
Earlier in the month, the fund said it had cleared an extra 22 state-owned tertiary institutions to apply for student loans.
The onboarding of the 22 state-owned institutions brings total number of approved state institutions to 108.
