FG to start disbursement of student loan from September

The federal government says it is working out modalities to begin the disbursement of student loan from September and October.

David Adejo, permanent secretary at the federal ministry of education, announced the development while answering questions from journalists in Abuja, on Wednesday.

President Bola Tinubu had on Monday signed the bill to give students access to interest-free loans.

Adejo said the initiative would provide easy access to higher education for indigent Nigerians through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.

The permanent secretary also said the bill is to make sure every Nigerian have access to higher education through “what we called the higher education Nigerian bank”.

“Learning from past mistakes, the bank is not going to be the type that will sit down and be collecting application loans,” he said.

“It will also perform normal banking functions and make sure loans are given because we had cases of loan recovery in the past.

“The act as it is tells us the process, but as I speak with you today, the president has approved the committee made up of the ministries and agencies and their meeting will be coming up on June 20.

“The president has also directed that by September to October of this 2023/2024 academic session, he wants to see recipients of these loans. So, it is a very serious march for us. So between now and then, we have to phantom the process for people to get the loan.”