Nigerian Education Loan Fund to Purge Dropouts from Beneficiary List

Dropouts still getting stipends are to be taken off the list of beneficiaries, the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) said yesterday.

Executive Director of Operations, Mr. Mustapha Iyal, confirmed that plans have peaked to update NELFUND’s system and the database.

He spoke at a news conference addressed in Abuja by the agency’s Managing Director, Mr. Akintunde Sawyerr.

Iyal said some of the beneficiaries who got stipends in the 2023/2024 academic session will not get in the 2024/2025 application cycle.

He said: “What we’re aiming to do right now is to update our system. And part of the update that we’re doing presently is updating the students’ database.

The NELFUND director said the fund had a lot of data from relevant institutions and a lot of their applicants kept coming up.

NELFUND said it has disbursed over N22 billion to 215,514 students.

The agency, which announced the closure of the 2023/2024 student loan application cycle on Friday, said it has disbursed N12, 818,960,000 upkeep to 169,114 students.

Sawyerr said the agency was updating its student database to ensure only active students receive support, with a focus on moving into the 2024-2025 academic session.

He blamed delays in processing applications on benefitting institutions that verify students’ information, adding that the delay affects the payment of institutional fees and upkeep.

Sawyerr noted that upkeep payments are made only after institutional fees are confirmed, with a gap of a week or two between the two payments.