The students loan scheme is one major landmark of the President Bola Tinubu’s led administration meant to affirm his quest to reposition education in Nigeria.
With the federal government rolling out the scheme on Friday, May 24, 2024, Nigerians now can heave a sigh of relief on how to bridge their children’s higher education gap, and actualise their dreams.
However, there are concerns in different quarters as the federal government seem to only be interested in offsetting the tuition fees of these teeming students without a comprehensive look into the entire funding challenges confronting tertiary education in Nigeria.
Experts see this as treating symptoms of malaria rather than addressing the sickness itself. They argue that scheme did not give considerations to other financial burdens students face while on campus which include but not limited to cost of living and other sundry charges and levies.
Gideon Adeyeni, spokesperson for the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) asked, “If a student pays tuition fee through loan but has no money to pay for other fees such as acceptance fee, development levy, and library fee, among others; will such a student be able to attend lectures, sit for tests, examinations and graduate?”
As President Tinubu makes real his promise to provide interest-free loans to students from low-income backgrounds which would allow them to meet their education goals, Nigerians seem uncertain of the eventual outcome of the scheme, fearing that it may go the way of the previous loan schemes.
According to Akintunde Sawyerr, the managing director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), students can access loans to pursue their academic aspirations without financial constraints through the scheme as it is going to be rolled out in phases.
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“The first thing I can tell you is that we’re going to roll this out in phases, the first phase is going to be with federal institutions and then we’re going to move to the other tertiary institutions.
“It’s going to be public sector mainly at the beginning because that’s where we find the bulk of students who perhaps need the financing cover,” Sawyerr said.
Sawyer disclosed that the agency has a system in place to give the scheme the needed national spread and some degree of equal opportunities for those who have the desire, the capacity and of course the eligibility to engage in the scheme.
However, the managing director of NELFund explained that applying for the fund does not automatically mean that the applicant will get the loan immediately.
“It just means that they can begin to apply and then sometime after that there’ll be an evaluation as to those who have qualified for the loan, and then an approval for those who have qualified will be given and then the rest of the scheme takes life,” he said.
He pointed out that the fund disbursement will commence after due evaluation of applications, but reiterated that the agency does not know the number of students that would qualify.
“We don’t know exactly how many students would qualify per se but what we do know is that there are something like 1.2 million students in government-owned institutions in this country and most of them are there mainly because they’re the most affordable for most students,” he noted.
Eligible students are encouraged to take advantage of the opened portal to invest in their future and contribute to the growth and development of Nigeria.
The portal, he explained provides a user-friendly interface for students to submit their loan applications conveniently without seeking the services of any third party.
