The Nigerian Schooling Mortgage Fund (NELFUND) has introduced plans to replace its system and college students’ database to establish dropouts who’re nonetheless receiving stipends.
The Government Director of Operations at NELFUND, Mr. Mustapha Iyal, disclosed this throughout a information convention in Abuja on Monday. In keeping with him, the replace goals to make sure solely eligible college students proceed receiving {financial} assist.
“What we’re aiming to do proper now could be to replace our system. And a part of the replace that we’re doing presently is updating the scholars’ database.
“It’s because, with out the replace, you don’t know who’s out of faculty. So, what we’re doing proper now could be that we’re coping with establishments,’’ he mentioned.
Guaranteeing correct information assortment
Iyal famous that the fund has intensive information from related establishments, and extra candidates proceed to emerge. He said that the upcoming 2024-2025 utility cycle would supply a chance to additional refine its data.
He additional defined that some candidates won’t obtain the following repairs stipend in the event that they solely attended the 2023-2024 tutorial session however did not transition into the 2024-2025 session.
“Lots of candidates could not get the following repairs as a result of they solely attend the 2023-2024 session however they had been unable to maneuver into 2024-2025,” Iyal mentioned.
What you need to know
The Nigerian Schooling Mortgage Fund (NELFUND) is a authorities initiative designed to supply {financial} assist to college students in tertiary establishments throughout Nigeria.
- Its main objective is to make sure that college students have entry to the mandatory funds for his or her training, lowering {financial} obstacles and enhancing increased training accessibility.
- NELFUND sometimes disburses stipends to eligible college students to cowl tuition, repairs, and different academic-related bills.
- The fund has disbursed a complete of N20,074,050,000 for institutional charges, benefiting no fewer than 192,906 college students throughout varied tertiary establishments within the nation as of February 3, 2025.
- The difficulty NELFUND faces with funding dropouts stems from its eligibility standards the fund is meant strictly for energetic college students who stay enrolled of their tutorial packages.
- When college students drop out or fail to transition into a brand new tutorial session, they not meet the necessities for {financial} assist.
Nonetheless, because of database limitations and system inefficiencies, some college students who’ve already left college could proceed receiving stipends. To handle this, NELFUND is updating its system to confirm scholar enrollment standing in real-time, working carefully with establishments to forestall funding ineligible recipients.
The upcoming 2024-2025 utility cycle is predicted to be a key alternative for refining these data.