As part of the President Bola Tinubu-led government’s Renewed Hope Agenda, more attention is being given to education, especially with the establishment of the Nigeria Education Loan Fund, NELFUND.
The scheme is to help Nigerian students achieve sustainable higher education and functional skill development.
The scheme was created to address the shortcomings of the previous Student Loan Act of 2023, which faced challenges related to governance, management, loan purposes, eligibility criteria, application methods, repayment provisions, and loan recovery.
However, Students of higher institutions in the southern part of Nigeria has been called upon to access loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) in order to ease their financial burden in the pursuit of their education.
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in a statement signed by the Clerk of the Senate, Abdul-Yekinn Odunayo, bemoaned the low application for the student loan by students from the southern region.
Odunayo noted that the association had observed that students from the North were taking advantage of the scheme more to enhance their education pursuit, declaring that students from the South will only be doing a disservice to themselves, if they fail to emulate their northern counterpart.
Odunayo, who lauded NELFUND for not making the process of accessing the loan cumbersome for the students, charged the agency to engage in more publicity to further create awareness about the loan scheme, particularly for students in the southern part of the country.
According to him in the statement, “The student loan scheme has helped many indigent Nigerian students to realize their dreams, urging NELFUND to continue to maintain accountability and probity in its operations”.
Odunayo also commended President Tinubu for establishing the scheme.
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