By Ngozi Nwankwo
In a bid to ease verification of applicants for the student loan, the Nigerian Education Loan Fund said it has commenced moves to ensure that its site is linked to the portals of institutions to enable ease of verification.
The Executive Director, operations of the Fund, Mustapha Iyal made this known during the sensitization programme held at the University of Ilorin for higher institutions in Kwara state on Tuesday.
Sharing more insight on the update, Iyal said, “We observed that one of the problems we are having is the problem of verification. So what NELFUND is trying to do is that we want to engage the institutions directly by linking the NELFUND activities on the institutional portals so by doing 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 which are already on the institutional portals so they don’t have to go to the NELFUND portal. That is the kind of portal we are looking at. We want to create a synergy.”
Speaking further on complaints raised by students of beneficiary institutions in Kwara state, the NELFUND top official said the Fund has commenced work on 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 the issues. We work 24 hours and we are always there for the student.”
Also speaking, the representative of the National Association of Nigerian Students on the 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 further 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 the student loan fund is here to stay. Nigerians can now get to 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,” he said.
The implementation of the student loan scheme is President Bola Tinubu’s flagship project in the education sector.
Barely a month after his inauguration as president, Tinubu signed the Access to Higher Education Act, which creates a legal framework for granting loans to indigent or low-income Nigerians to facilitate the payment of their fees in Nigerian tertiary institutions.