Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government, which earlier assured that its student loan programme would commence in January 2024, has set March 2024 for the definite opening of the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFund) portal for eligible students.
This was disclosed by Mr Akintunde Sawyerr, the Execute Secretary of NELFund, in Abuja, and urged eligible students to register to access the fund.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu on June 12, 2023, signed the Access to Higher Education Bill into law to enable indigent students to access interest-free loans to pursue their education in any Nigerian tertiary institutions.
The scheme was slated to commence between September and October 2023, but because of unforeseen circumstances, there was a revised timeline to January.
Giving reasons for the delay in starting the scheme as earlier scheduled, Mr Sawyerr explained that the process is technically driven and necessary measures needed to be put in place for proper execution.
“The take-off date is this month (March) and the reason for the delay is that we are trying to get it right.
“This is not a political programme where we say, oh! we are just going to do it, it doesn’t matter how it works.
“This is a programme that will probably run beyond me as a human being, not even as a Secretary. This is something that we want to run adequately, so we have to get it right,’’ he said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday.
Mr Sawyerr reiterated President Tinubu’s commitment to ensure that lack of finance did not constitute a reason for any student in Nigeria to halt education at a tertiary level.
According to him, the scheme is designed for indigent Nigerian students in tertiary institutions and applications will be done online.
“We have decided that all applicants should be able to access this scheme regardless of where they are, who they are and who they know.
“We want this to be a process that is fair to all and we will advertise the portal widely so that applicants will be able to go to the website to fill series of forms and answer certain questions.
“Based on the data they input and their answers to the questions, the system will be able to determine appropriately, whether they are eligible to apply or not,’’ Mr Sawyerr explained.
