The Federal Government has expressed its readiness to launch the Nigerian Education Loans Fund.
The Executive Secretary of the Student Loan Board, Dr Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this on Monday to Correspondents in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to him, the scheme aims to eliminate the challenges faced by Nigerian youths in accessing tertiary education due to lack of funds from their parents or guardians.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Education Funding refers to the financial support provided to students for their education.
The funding, provided by both private and government agencies, can be allocated on a long-term and short-term basis.
The funds, backed by an Act popularly known as the “Student Loan Act”, seeks to provide access to interest-free loans to Nigerian students in tertiary institutions through an established Education Loan Fund to help Nigerians fund their higher education.
“There are many people with great capacity and with the desire to improve their education.
“And, usually, the place where that falls down is when they get into the tertiary space; at that point, they really have a number of options.
“Either to go into the world of work with qualifications that are not necessarily optimal for them or to find ways of funding that tertiary space.”
Sawyerr said that the loan would not only cater for students going to educational institutions but also those going into technical, teaching and vocational institutions.
He explained that the process for applying was with little human interference in order to increase accessibility and accountability in the system.
“So, in applying for this loan, there is zero human intervention.
“In other words, there is an app; the applicants will go on to a portal, they will engage with that app, they will have to put in certain pieces of information which makes them eligible.
“One is their job number and, of course, to tie in to that their date of birth, National Identity Number, BVN and their name, which confirms that they are Nigerians,” Sawyerr said.
Similarly, Mr Zaccheus Adedeji, Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service said the scheme would be funded with the revenue generated from the Education Tax.
“The loans will allow more youths to enjoy quality education in line with the campaign promises of President Bola Tinubu,” Adedeji said.
The Students Loan Act was Tinubu’s second piece of legislation signed within two weeks of his assumption of office in May 2023.