Amid the Nigerian Education Loan Fund’s (NELFUND’s) announcement that the student loan application portal will be opened on Friday, May 24, 2024, some Nigerians have expressed concerns about who is eligible or otherwise to apply for it.
Oluwole Ojabowale in his response to the NELFund announcement on opening the portal in the next seven days asked to know if students in Colleges of Nursing are eligible for the loan.
Ojabowale on his official X handle @woleoja asked; “Will it be open to colleges of nursing students?”
Similarly, Ciroma on his X handle @thisisChiwar asked; “Will it be open to PG students?”
However, the federal government had earlier clarified who is eligible for the loan during President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s signing of the repeal and re-enactment student loans bill into law on April 3, 2024, hinted that not all undergraduates are eligible for the initiative branded “unprecedented in the history of education in Nigeria”.
The five categories of people listed as ineligible to take the loan are students found to be guilty of examination malpractice by any school authority.
Students, otherwise known as applicants have defaulted in respect of any previous loan granted to them by any organisation.
Others are students with a criminal record of felony or any offence involving dishonesty or fraud.
Similarly, students whose parents either father or mother have defaulted in respect of student loans or any loan granted to him or her, and students who have been convicted of drug offences.
Consequently, Nigerian students in public tertiary institutions who are undergraduates and are not guilty of the listed offences are eligible to apply for the loan.
Stressing the expediency of the initiative, the presidency said the student loan scheme is geared toward building an army of skilled workforce that can easily become self-employed and increase Nigeria’s productive base.
President Bola Tinubu while signing the national students loan amendment bill into law explained that the federal government’s mission is to offer financial assistance to indigent Nigerian students in tertiary institutions.
Akintunde Sawyerr, the managing director of NELFund had earlier explained that the student loan would cover 100 percent of the institutional fees of applicants.
“In terms of the amount available, it will be 100 percent of whatever course of their study is; this is for public tertiary institutions, and the objective is to be able to cover the cost of their institutional fees in total,” he said.
