Education
FG begin student loan January as website open soon
Bola Tinubu
Student Loan Scheme is set to commence this month January, the Federal Government said on Wednesday.
According, the students who apply through its can access the facility within 30 days, as soon as the website completed.
The Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu, who briefed State House Correspondencts after the first Federal Executive Council meeting this January, said that, “the website is almost done and shall be completed this January. Application for beneficiaries is going to be online and applicants can access their loan within 30 days,”
The President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had earlier signed the student Loan Bill into law on June 12, 2023. The move was in “fulfilment of one of his campaign promises to liberalise funding of education,” said by the then Presidential Strategy Team, Dele Alake.
The scheme is to ensure indigent students have access to loans at interest-free rates.
Tinubu, in the annual Nigeria Economic Summit in Abuja last year October declared that; “By January 2024, the new Students Loan Programme must commence. To the future of our children and students, we’re saying no more strikes!”
There have been more concerns on the reality of the scheme as the month of January is less than two weeks.
Sununu responding to questions on Wednesday on the issue said, “the scheme was on course and would commence this month as promised.
He further stressed that, “The criteria for the prospective beneficiaries are to; be a student in a public school, resident in Nigeria, or already gotten admission in to public institutions in Nigeria, once you are qualified, you apply online, it will be processed as designed and you access the loan within 30 days.
The supplementary budget 2023 and the 2024 budget, funds have been set aside to cater for the scheme, the essence is to increase and ease access to students who want to procure their higher education in Nigeria and basically for public tertiary institutions.
The Minister had earlier said, “the Ministry of Education presented a note to the council, prepared by the ministry and the National Universities Commission, on the guidelines for implementing transnational education in Nigeria.”
Sununu explained that, the scheme would allow foreign degree-awarding institutions the opportunity to set base in Nigeria, employ local talent, admit local students and lessen the pressure on existing higher institutions of learning.
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