Osun State Governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke on Tuesday commended President Bola Tinubu for establishing and fast-tracking effective take-off of management of the Nigeria Education Loans Fund (NELFUND) to tackle many challenges being faced by the student population.
The governor made the commendation while hosting the NELFUND delegation who visited him in his office in Abere.
He said, “As a government, we see the Fund as a veritable platform to provide a lifeline for many indigent students in our various schools. The initiative promises to remove the pain and hardship experienced by many brilliant students. Again, we are elated by the prospects and opportunities for our students, hence our launching into the programme with all machinery of government.
“We are glad our efforts paid off with the enrolment of many Osun schools in the programme. It is gratifying to hear that Osun took the lead among comity of states in the selection and compliance process. Our next plan is to follow up by further deepening the preparedness of the selected schools for accessing opportunities available within the fund.
“Our gratitude also goes to the management of NELFUND for making the take-off so efficient and for the fairness manifested during the selection process. We have strong faith in the capacity of the Fund to continue on the path of openness and equity.
“A round of applause for the Managing Director and other top management of the Fund.
“I must however call our attention to a lesson we must learn as a nation from the operation of the loans board. As a long-term resident of the United States, I am aware of the challenge of student loan debt. It has become a crisis of sorts. It has also become a subject of hot political debate. It has to do with huge student loan debt in the US.
“We must as a nation avoid a similar debt trap. As we have the grace to understudy other nations operating similar funds, we must avoid the pitfalls. Our new system must integrate mechanisms to prevent similar experiences like what is happening in the US.
“I task the management of NELFUND to innovate within its mandate on how to make its operations sustainable. Debt trap must never be experienced in Nigeria’s students’ loan operations.
“Having said the above, we appreciate the recognition of our modest efforts by stakeholders. As a government, we also applaud Mr President for this laudable initiative.”
Earlier, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Education Loan Fund, Mr Akintunde Sawyer, remarked that “Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) is here to bridge that gap. It’s a fantastic program because this country is regarded as one of the most viable one of the most dynamic countries on the planet. But it’s Sammy also renowned for in recent times to be one of the most underperforming countries given the potential that this great nation has.
“It is no mistake that we are on the best visit to any state governor making the state of the governor of Osun State and very proud to be here the dynamism of this Governor is second to none, you are lucky to have him in the office.
“NELFUND has been tasked with the responsibility of identifying people in this society who have the desire, who are eligible, qualify to go for tertiary education to improve a lot in life, but don’t have the funding, don’t have the money, even when they have the place secure to be able to attend those institutions and get the best out of themselves. So that they can be more employable, they can be more useful to themselves, their families, and to this great nation.
“Our task is to ensure that wherever those people have been find them and we allow them by paying their fees and giving them a little extra to be able to go and get the kind of education at scale in this country that will lift and propel this country and make this country great again.
“So how are we doing that very quickly. In order for us to do this properly, it is important for us to be able to be devoid of any biases and religious sections. The only bias we have is that we’re looking for people who don’t have economic needs that’s the only bias built into this system.”
“We’re not a profit-making agency. We’re not here to make money from we’re here to make an impact on education in Nigeria because we believe that the more Nigerians are educated, the more they get work, more that can generate wealth, what they can make money. It will be given in batch. This is the idea of this to make it non onerous.
“We have spent a lot of time gathering data so that in our system, the data of students is already uploaded, because we are giving students who are already in institutions. So it’s not just the new ones coming in. We’re giving them we’re the ones who are already there, what we are giving them for the next session. So data has been extremely important to us so that we can cross check what the student is telling us at the beginning of the process to what the institution has databank at the end of the process.
“I can tell you today that Osun state has the highest number amount of data in our database today. What that means is that, if all the students are eligible in Nigeria apply to all decide to apply for Osun state will have the highest number.
“I must thank your Excellency for this because we reached out and the reaction we got from Osun state, so embracing so practical, so forward moving.
“We devised a methodology that will help us do that quickly and easily, your Excellency, we have decided that because we don’t want this to be about who you know where you’re coming from. We decided to do it using technology and we’ve deployed a portal we deploy an IT application so that people will go to the portal and put in certain pieces of data that identify them uniquely. Their name, their BVN, JAMB number and matriculation number, the admission number.
“And then it allows them to create an account a dashboard where they will put their profile and the account details and then it moves further and it allows them to apply for a loan. That is their fees at the institution that they’ve been selected to attend.
“Once they apply for that loan, we will do an evaluation to make sure that they fall into the bracket that has deserving of the row.nAll of these are take to indicate that they are Nigerian and the BVN is to show that they are financially included because they have to pay the loan back through the banking system JAMB have taken some effort to get admission into a governmental institution because that’s where the law allows us to pay the fees only governmental institutions and there’s a good reason for that.
“But, they move on through the system and at the end of the process they make an application to go to an institution of their choice where they have been selected.
“Once they click on that and we approve the application itself, and we give approval, we pay their school fees directly to the institution so that they can have unfettered access to classes, tutorials and seminars to examinations without anybody asking them for anything to add to this because we recognize that people cannot go to school students are broke.
“We decided to also provide the students with a stipend, a monthly stipend so that they can do the basic things that are required to help them go to class. Of course, if it’s not done well so make sure that they’re still in education, they’re still in the system. Once that loan is paid, and they apply for this every year, we provide them this monthly fee into their bank accounts directly. Once this is done, then they are equal to one occasion that they are required to attain and achieve some of the things many of us in this room have been able to achieve and attain.
“The way recovery works is that getting a loan is a commercial arrangement, It’s not a criminal arrangement unless you telling falsehood or you lie.
“But, if they cannot pay the loan back for any reason, we don’t want that we give them two moratorium after NYSC only if they have a job.
“Requirement is two years after youth service you report to us, if we can help them find jobs, we will help them if we can’t, we just encourage them to keep trying.
“They will pay according to their earnings, in fact, we will not ask them to pay us directly, we will ask their employer to check your register, which we would have set up to show that this individual has a role of loan and there would be direct deduction by the employer,” he concluded.
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