The Nigerian Government has paid the tuition fees of 20,000 students directly to their institutions in the ongoing Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) scheme.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyer disclosed 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.
With the signing of the Access to Higher Education Act, the president established the fund and established a legal framework for lending money to low-income or destitute Nigerians to help them pay for their tertiary education costs.
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.
