The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has revealed that over 90 percent of federal tertiary institutions had sent data of their students, just as over 60, 000 applications had been received from students in these federal tertiary institutions since it opened its portal last Friday.
The Managing Director of the fund, Akintunde Sawyerr who made this known in Abuja while briefing the newsmen at a post-application launch conference on Thursday, said only five of these institutions were yet to submit data of their students even as over 9.5 million had visited the website in the past one week
He also revealed that in three weeks, the fund would democratise the loans following the outcry from students in state-owned tertiary institutions, thereby opening its portal for students in state institutions to apply for the loan.
Sawyerr urged the authorities of the state tertiary institutions to begin to submit the data of its students to ensure that the process is seamless.
It will be recalled that President Bola Tinubu had on June 12, 2023, 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 “fulfilment 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.
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