The Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, an intervention agency set up by the Federal Government, projected on Tuesday, that the beneficiaries of student loans may hit an estimated 2.1 million.
The Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr disclosed this at the inauguration and induction of members of the SERVICOM unit and committee in Abuja.
His projection comes one week after data obtained from NELFUND showed that it has disbursed over N104bn to 613,734 students from Nigerian tertiary institutions since inception.
The disbursed funds encompass institutional fees paid directly to the institutions of applicants and upkeep loans paid directly to the account number provided by the applicants.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja, Sawyerr explained that with the admission of about 400,000 new entrants this year, the Fund may be anticipating its total number of registrants to reach 2.1 million students.
He said: “For the people we are responsible for in tertiary institutions that are government-owned such as polytechnics, universities and colleges of education and the bulk of students who will be coming in for the next session, we have estimated our commitment today to these people is somewhere in the range of 2.1m.
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“It is an estimate and it gets bigger than that when we start our skills programme. That is because there we have a lot more. We are expecting that about 400,000 students will be starting this new session.”
When asked if the Fund would also address the plight of the over 20 million out-of-school children in the country, Sawyerr dismissed the notion.
According to him, the loan scheme is strictly for students in tertiary institutions in line with the building principles and law.
“When you look at the Act that set up NELFund, it is very specific that it is for tertiary education. So, while we recognise that there may be 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, the law only allows us to address those who are studying or about to start the course of tertiary institutions owned by the Federal Government and subnationals.
“So the rest of the population of students is important. Some of them may eventually come into our purview as they get through their education system. But as of today, by law, we are only able to address those at the tertiary level. We have a two-pronged process. Before anyone can apply for a loan, he has to register with us.
“We have about 417,000 students who have registered on our portals and about 328,000 who have actually applied. Some have been processed, many have been looked at and most of them will get the loan,” he stated.
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