Nigerian government says about 30,000 students have successfully applied for its loan scheme barely seven days after the portal was launched on 24th May, 2024..
Similarly, over 60,000 individuals have registered on the
website of the fund.
The Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund,
Akintunde Sawyerr, made this known in a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
On June 12, 2023, Tinubu signed the Access to Higher
Education Act, 2023 into law to enable indigent students to access
interest-free loans for their educational pursuits in any Nigerian tertiary
institution.
The move was in “fulfillment of one of his campaign promises
to liberalise funding of education,” a member of the then Presidential Strategy
Team, Dele Alake, said.
The Act, popularly known as the Students Loan Law, also
established the Nigerian Education Loan Fund to process all loan requests,
grants, disbursement, and recovery.
Although the government initially announced that the scheme
would be launched in September, it suffered several delays leading to an
indefinite postponement in early March.
The Presidency had linked the delay to Tinubu’s directive to
expand the scheme to include loans for vocational skills.
After receiving a briefing from the NELFUND team led by the
Minister of State for Education, Dr. Yusuf Sununu, on January 22, the President
had directed the Fund to extend interest-free loans to Nigerian students
interested in skill-development programmes.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu signed the Access to Higher Education Act, 2023, into law to provide Nigerian students with financial assistance.