Private varsity students soon to benefit from govt loan scheme

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) may soon broaden its student loan programme to include private universities, with plans under consideration for implementation within the next three years.

This was disclosed by the Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, during a strategic engagement and sensitisation session held with institutional leaders and stakeholders in Enugu on Thursday.

The outreach campaign, which incorporated the use of local dialects to improve understanding, aimed to boost awareness and participation in the student loan scheme across the region.

Sawyerr explained that while the immediate focus remains on students in public institutions, the long-term vision is to extend financial support to all Nigerian students regardless of the type of institution they attend.

“We have only been going for one year. We need to really address the public sector first. These loans allow students to otherwise drop out for very small amounts of money,” he said.

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“The students that we see in the public sector don’t even have the option in most cases to go to private sector, and some of them are dropping out. So we want to address that, make sure that we’ve got them covered. And then when we see after a while—two, three years max—the effect this has had on the generality of youth in Nigeria, we can then do some sort of review to see what it might mean for moving to the private sector segment.”

Addressing some of the obstacles NELFUND has encountered, Sawyerr pointed to issues of misinformation and skepticism among the public as key challenges.

“The only challenges we have are the usual ones—misunderstanding, misinformation, people not being sure, or feeling that it’s designed not to work for them or that something is stopping them. They just have a normal problem like everybody else has with technology, and then they say, this has been rigged against us. But we’re here. We’re not here to waste our time. We’re here to help the people apply and get institutions to also take part,” he explained.

Also speaking at the event, Dr. Chinyere Onyeisi, Special Adviser to the Enugu State Governor on Education Innovation, underscored the significance of the NELFUND initiative, particularly as a means of supporting students’ academic pursuits.

“So what the government is doing has an essential role to play in different areas of education. But this NELFUND has to do with the student support system. And it is important for our students in Southeast and Enugu in particular to maximise the opportunity to apply,” Onyeisi said.

She urged academic leaders to take the sensitisation efforts further by educating students in their institutions about the application process and its benefits.

“The major takeaway to the teachers, the heads of institutions that are here today, is when they go back to their various schools, they are supposed to continue to step down the sensitisation programme to make sure that the students understand the procedures, how to apply, and then apply effectively to benefit from this initiative. Because it’s real. And they are testifying that other states are already benefiting,” she added.

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