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The federal government has listed students from state government institutions as beneficiaries of the education loan scheme.The Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, Akintunde Sawyerr, made this known during an ongoing press briefing in Abuja on Thursday.He noted that the scheme will be available to state university students in the next three weeks.Sawyerr said the website of the student loan fund has received over 60,000 visitors since its launch.He noted that over 90% of federal institutions have submitted the list of students, noting that only two federal universities and two federal polytechnics are yet to do so.Recall that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Access to Higher Education Act, 2023 into law on June 12, 2023.According to President Tinubu, the loan scheme would enable indigent students to access interest-free loans for their educational pursuits in any Nigerian tertiary institution.The move was in “fulfilment of one of his campaign promises to liberalise funding of education,” a member of the then Presidential Strategy Team, Dele Alake, said.The Act, popularly known as the Students Loan Law, also established the Nigerian Education Loan Fund to process all loan requests, grants, disbursement, and recovery.Although the government initially announced that the scheme would be launched in September, it suffered several delays leading to an indefinite postponement in early April.The Presidency had linked the delay to Tinubu’s directive to expand the scheme to include loans for vocational skills.After receiving a briefing from the NELFUND team led by the Minister of State for Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu, on January 22, the President directed the Fund to extend interest-free loans to Nigerian students interested in skill-development programmes.Tinubu based his decision on the need for the scheme to accommodate those who may not want to pursue a university education, noting that skill acquisition is as essential as obtaining undergraduate and graduate academic qualifications.

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