The federal government plans to create an app for student loan applications.
This is according to Akintunde Sawyer, Executive Secretary of the Student Loan Scheme Board, who stated on Monday following a meeting with President Bola Tinubu in Abuja.
Sawyer stated that the measure is intended to ensure zero human intervention in the system, which is anticipated to begin this year.
The development comes months after Tinubu said that the scheme would begin in January 2024.
“By January 2024, the new student loan must commence. To the future of our children and students, we are saying no more strikes,” Tinubu said in Abuja during the National Economic Summit 2023, assuring students that the era of incessant strikes is gone.
On June 12, Nigeria’s Democracy Day, President Tinubu signed the student loan bill, fulfilling a campaign promise.
The measure, supported by Femi Gbajabiamila, the Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives and currently Chief of Staff to the President, gives indigent Nigerians easy access to higher education via interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.
The programme’s money will be held by the Ministry of Education and will only be available to impoverished tertiary students.
