NELFUND urged to extend students’ loan scheme to postgraduate studies

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has been urged to extend the students’ loan scheme to postgraduate studies, particularly those who could not get study grants to help fast track their academic programme.

John Adesiji Olorunmaiye, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ilorin, made this appeal in Lagos during the valedictory lecture in commemoration of the retirement of Professor Omotayo Fakinlede of the University of Lagos (UNILAG).

Olorunmaiye in a guest lecture entitled, ‘Advancing Engineering Education in Nigeria: Progress, Challenges and Prospects,’ argued that extending the loan scheme and a monthly stipend to postgraduate students will help to reduce the financial burden on the students.

“If the student loan administered by NELFUND is extended to postgraduate students in engineering, so that even if you can’t give them grants, you give them loans, what that will do to them is they will be able to concentrate on their work,” he said.

Olorunmaiye also advocated for a stronger loan repayment mechanism to strengthen the scheme, adding that NELFUND can be rest assured of recouping every loan given to postgraduate students.

“These people, you won’t have to look far for them before you see them. Many of them will become lecturers in various universities in Nigeria, so it will be easy to trace them,” he added.

The celebrant, Omotayo Fakinlede, a Professor of Computational Mechanics, Department of Systems Engineering, Unilag, disclosed that he is going to dedicate his retirement to supporting artisans.

“I want to train artisans because I can see that illiteracy in the artisan level is what makes us have tables with shelves that cannot come out,” he said.

According to Fakinlede, artisans across the country do not have enough understanding of geometry to know how to produce long lasting products.

The retired professor of Systems Engineering disclosed that he will be piping down to their level, while also developing a sustainable business model to scale the initiative.

“It’s not even the money to pay for it because we have enough people that want to do the work. But once we can get a sustainable model, then we will do it. So that’s one of the things I’m doing next,” Fakinlede said.

Speaking about the legacy he left behind at both University of Ilorin and University Lagos, where he taught after returning to the country, Fakinlede said he believes those in the system are better equipped to build on his achievement.

“But what I’m leaving behind, I’ve tried my best to help the people in the system to know what they need to do. But sometimes because these things are hard, people don’t want to do them. It’s not because they cannot work, but they do not work immediately,” he said.

The retired professor of Systems Engineering said he now has enough people in both universities that have imbibed the ideas he left behind and are making progress in the academic environment.

He added that improving the system is self-love, once the cycle of influence can grow to people who believe and are doing things to improve the system. “If you keep destroying where you are standing, you will fall eventually,” Fakinlede said.