By Onyinyechi Udemezue
The newly appointed Principal and Chief Executive of the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun, Nigeria, Engr. Dr. Samual E. Onoji has tasked the Institute’s students to take advantage of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) to ease off their financial challenges.
Dr. Onoji who gave the task recently when the Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr and his team paid him a courtesy visit recently in Effurun, highlighted that NELFUND was established to provide financial assistance to students nationwide hence the need for the Institute’s students to take advantage of the opportunity.
Earlier, the Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr informed the students that NELFUND is open to both new and existing students in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The body he said will disburse the money within reasonable days of successful applications.
According to him, “The loan provides financial support to qualified Nigerian students for tuition fees and other charges, and for their upkeep during their studies in approved tertiary academic institutions and/or vocational and skills acquisition institutions within Nigeria.”
Sawyerr who enjoined students to avail themselves of the opportunities provided by NELFUND to better their wellbeing while in school, pointed out that the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, is an intervention agency set up by the Federal Government, projected that the beneficiaries of student loans may hit an estimated 2.1 million.
He disclosed that NELFUND has disbursed over N104bn to 613,734 students from Nigerian tertiary institutions since inception.
The disbursed funds according to him encompass institutional fees paid directly to the institutions of applicants and upkeep loans paid directly to the account number provided by the applicants.
In the words of the NELFUND Boss, “We are responsible for students in tertiary institutions that are government-owned such as polytechnics where PTI is classified, universities and colleges of education.”
He maintained that the loan scheme is strictly for students in tertiary institutions in line with the building principles and law.
“We have about 417,000 students who have registered on our portals and about 328,000 who have actually applied. Some have been processed, many have been looked at and most of them will get the loan,” he disclosed.
