The Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has disclosed that the free access provided by the Federal Government for all students for interest-free loans would soon be altered as certain courses are likely to be barred from taking the loan.

NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, revealed this at the weekend while speaking at a virtual conference organised by The Renewed Hope Global titled ‘Student Loan Masterclass: Why, What, and How?’

He explained that the fund is looking forward to pursuing courses that align with the country’s needs rather than giving out loans to those seeking certificates in fields with limited job opportunities to repay their loans.

His words: “At the moment, all courses are treated the same because we are providing loans for people who are already in 300 and 400 levels. We don’t want to discriminate because some of them may be about to drop out. Having said that, there is recognition that there are some courses that Nigeria as a country needs people to have.

“With no disrespect to anybody, language courses are less important to our national development than perhaps engineering or medical courses because they are more practical. And as a developing country, we do need skills and people to be educated to a level where they can develop the country.

“That is not to say that we will not fund courses, for example, where people begin to have skills that are exportable; so, people may study in Nigeria and get skills that they can use to work in other places and remit funds back to Nigeria.”

Sawyerr stated that so far, 335,000 students have benefited from the student loan initiative across 127 tertiary institutions (The Guardian)