The loan, introduced by President Bola Tinubu, seeks to provide accessible financial aid to students who struggle to afford the rising costs of tuition and related expenses.
Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has stated that at least 30,000 students from various tertiary institutions across the country have been selected to benefit from the newly established Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
The loan, introduced by President Bola Tinubu, seeks to provide accessible financial aid to students who struggle to afford the rising costs of tuition and related expenses.
Akpabio made this known in a statement during his visit to the Nigeria Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) in Abuja.
The Senate President stated that the Student Loan bill was one of the most significant pieces of legislation passed by the 10th Assembly.
He noted that the bill allowed underprivileged children to pursue higher education without the burden of financial constraints, adding that it made the legislature most appealing to him as the Senate President.
“One of the most important bills for the 10th Assembly was the bill sent to us by President Bola Tinubu. The Student Loan Bill enables vulnerable Nigerian students, the less privileged to obtain higher education.
“And as I speak to you now, over 30,000 Nigerian students have already been selected to benefit from that scheme. That is one of the bills I will say appealed to me the most.”
SaharaReporters earlier reported that President Tinubu signed the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act (Repeal and Re-Enactment) Bill, 2024, into law.
SaharaReporters reported on March 20 that the Nigerian Senate had passed the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act (Repeal and Re-Enactment) Bill, 2024, after separate considerations by both the Senate and the House of Representatives of the report of the Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund.
The report on the bill was tendered before the federal lawmakers by the committee’s chairman, Senator Muntari Dandutse (All Progressives Congress – Katsina South).
The bill was introduced to the Senate by President Bola Tinubu for consideration and passage last week.
The Senate hurried the bill’s hearing by suspending relevant elements of its standing rules and referring it to the Committee of the whole for consideration.
Following a debate on the bill, Senate President Godswill Akpabio sent it to the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND for further legislative action, with a one-week report deadline.
The bill proposes to offer poor Nigerians access to higher education through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, which was established by the Act to ensure education for all Nigerians.
Many concerned citizens and civil organisations have criticised this policy, saying the loan would not improve access to tertiary education in the country as advocated by the government.
For instance, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) has described it as a smokescreen to take education out of the reach of the poor.
The group asserted that the scheme had not worked anywhere else, noting that it would transform public education into a business and students into customers.
It later stated that the postponement of the student loan policy by the government showed that the policy was not designed for the interests of indigent students in the country.
The ERC noted this in a recent press statement jointly signed by Hassan Taiwo Soweto, National Coordinator and Michael Lenin, its National Mobilisation Officer.
The group said that the programme was a packaged fraud by the Tinubu government to deceive Nigerians into continuing to raise tuition for public colleges, making education more expensive for common residents.
