The Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has stated that the free access provided by the Federal Government (FG) for all students for interest-free loans would soon be altered as certain courses are likely to be restricted from applying for the loan.
This was revealed by Akintunde Sawyerr, the Managing Director, NELFUND while speaking at an online conference organized by The Renewed Hope Global titled ‘Student Loan Masterclass: Why, What, and How?’
He said, “At the moment, all courses are treated the same because we are providing loans for people who are already in 300 and 400 levels. We don’t want to discriminate because some of them may be about to drop out. Having said that, there is recognition that there are some courses that Nigeria as a country needs people to have.
“With no disrespect to anybody, language courses are less important to our national development than perhaps engineering or medical courses because they are more practical. And as a developing country, we do need skills and people to be educated to a level where they can develop the country.
“That is not to say that we will not fund courses, for example, where people begin to have skills that are exportable; so, people may study in Nigeria and get skills that they can use to work in other places and remit funds back to Nigeria.”
He disclosed that about 335,000 students across 127 tertiary institutions have benefited from the student loan, so far.