The Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFund) said the scheme is currently exclusive to public tertiary institutions because of the need to target the most vulnerable students, many of whom attend schools where tuition fees are relatively low.
The managing director of the Fund, Mr Akintunde Sawyerr, gave the explanation in an interview on Arise Television.
Recall that the scheme signed into law by President Bola Tinubu in June 2023 provides interest-free loans to cover institutional fees and a monthly allowance of N20, 000 for upkeep.
The loan covers tuition fees, paid directly to the schools, and beneficiaries are expected to begin repaying two years after completing their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, provided they are employed.
The repayment process involves employers deducting 10 per cent of a beneficiary’s salary until the loan is fully repaid.
Sawyerr said the federal government had decided to limit access to the loan to public tertiary institutions to ensure that the country’s limited resources are used to support as many students as possible.
“We’re working with public funds and the resources are limited. Most of the students who need this support are in public schools, where fees are affordable. It’s about prioritising and helping more people with the available funds,” he said.
He however stated that there was the possibility of expanding to private institutions in the future.
“When I spoke with the President (President Bola Tinubu), he expressed his desire that the fund should be available to all Nigerians. But you have to manage funds and start somewhere. I do not doubt that at some point in the future, it will be expanded,” he said.
He admitted that fees in private institutions are in millions of naira thereby making it challenging for the current funding structure to accommodate them.
“We’re focused on trying to help as many as possible, rather than a few. We have to manage funds,” he added.
Sawyerr disclosed that NELFund had already disbursed N10 billion to about 90,970 students, with plans to disburse an additional N92 billion for the next academic session.
He also revealed that more applications for the loan were coming from the northern part of the country, attributing the development to a higher concentration of public institutions in the north, as well as cultural differences in attitude toward loans.
“We noticed that a good number of the people from the south study in the north and have applied. There’s a sort of geographical disparity but not by state of origin. There seems to be a lesser level of enthusiasm in the southeast, south-west, and south-south,” he said.
