By Chika Nwachukwu
Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, has commenced moves to ensure that its site is linked to the portals of institutions to enable ease of verification.
Executive Director, Operations of the Fund, Mustapha Iyal made this known during a sensitisation programme held at the University of Ilorin for higher institutions in Kwara State, yesterday.
Sharing more insight on the update, Iyal said “we observed that one of the problems we are having is verification. So what NELFUND is trying to do is that we want to engage the institutions directly by linking our activities on the institutional portals so that when a student is trying to do registration in school, they can select whether they want to pay via NELFUND, cash or other means.
“So if the student opts to pay with NELFUND, they will fill in the application with their details that are already on the institutional portal so they don’t have to go to NELFUND’s portal. That is the kind of portal we are looking at. We want to create a synergy.”
Speaking on the complaints raised by students of benefitting institutions in Kwara State, the NELFUND official said the Fund has commenced work on the issues raised.
“On the issues raised by the students, we are working on ways to make the whole process seamless. We have already started working on them. We work 24 hours and we are always there for the student.”
Representative of the National Association of Nigerian students on NELFUND Board, Umar Farouk hailed the move by the administration of President Bola Tinubu to establish the student loan initiative.
According to Farouk, the move will encourage indigent students to have access to higher education.
“One of the campaign promises of the president is the student loan and I am happy to say that it is here to stay. Nigerians understand that children of nobodies can now access higher education easily. With access to student loan, everyone now has the ease to go to school.”
The implementation of the student loan scheme is President Tinubu’s flagship project in the education sector.
Barely a month after his inauguration, he signed the Access to Higher Education Act, which creates a legal framework to grant loans to indigent or low-income Nigerians to facilitate the payment of their fees in tertiary institutions.
The law created the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.
NELFUND is saddled with the responsibility of handling all loan requests, grants, disbursement and recovery.
The fund, according to the Act, is to be funded from multiple streams and will engage in other productive activities.
