The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has confirmed that Nigerian students studying abroad are ineligible for the recently launched student loan scheme.
This information was announced on Friday by NELFUND’s Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr.
The Access to Higher Education Act of 2023, signed into law by President Bola Tinubu on June 12, promises to provide interest-free loans to underprivileged students attending Nigerian academic institutions.
The action is consistent with Tinubu’s campaign vow to increase education financing. Dele Alake, a member of the former Presidential Strategy Team, emphasised the importance of this act in making education more accessible.
Following a briefing from NELFUND headed by Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu, on January 22, the President directed the Fund to extend interest-free loans to students pursuing skill-development programmes.
Despite these delays, the project has generated tremendous interest, with 30,000 students successfully registering and over 60,000 people signing up on the NELFUND website.
According to a BBC report, on May 22, 2024, a group of Nigerian students at Teesside University were expelled from their courses and told to leave the United Kingdom due to difficulty paying tuition fees on time.
The students cited the devaluation of the naira as a substantial hurdle to achieving their financial obligations, resulting in a violation of their visa sponsorship criteria.
Nonetheless, Sawyerr stressed that the loan scheme was only for students studying in Nigeria.
“Nigerians in Diaspora cannot benefit from the student loan. Nigerians schooling in the country are those we want to help. The law does not allow the FG to give loans to Nigerians studying abroad,” he stated.
Criticising the exclusion of Nigerian students in foreign institutions from the recently introduced student loan scheme, the National Mobilisation Officer, Education Rights Campaign, Adaramoye Lenin, stated that this exclusion highlighted the inadequacy of the scheme in addressing the educational needs of Nigerian students.
He argued that the government was using the loan scheme to avoid properly funding public education, instead shifting the financial burden onto students.