The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has announced plans to introduce a payment verification system that will enable parents to confirm whether their children’s tuition fees have been covered under the Federal Government’s student loan scheme.
The initiative follows the discovery of cases in which students allegedly received financial assistance from NELFUND while continuing to collect tuition payments from their parents.
NELFUND Managing Director Akintunde Sawyerr disclosed the development during a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, describing the practice as unacceptable.
According to Sawyerr, the fund intends to strengthen transparency in its payment processes and prevent students from receiving duplicate financial support for the same educational expenses.
He said the proposed arrangement would allow parents to verify whether NELFUND had settled their children’s institutional fees, reducing the possibility of unnecessary payments.
However, parents would not necessarily be able to view the exact amount disbursed to their children’s institutions.
Sawyerr expressed concern that some beneficiaries were taking advantage of the scheme by failing to inform their families that their tuition had already been covered.
“This comment is based on our recognition that there are so many students out there who are double-dipping. They are taking from the NELFUND and still stressing their parents,” he said.
“We are going to put an end to that.”
The managing director also acknowledged occasional delays in loan disbursements, explaining that some payment difficulties could arise from the financial institutions responsible for processing transactions.
Providing an update on the fund’s payment infrastructure, an official identified as Iyal said approximately 400,000 students had been covered under the pilot phase of the system.
He disclosed that an additional 20,000 students were recorded within the week preceding the briefing.
According to him, the platform was processing transactions for nearly 5,000 students daily, reflecting the scale of operations required to administer the programme.
Iyal explained that each beneficiary was assigned a digital wallet linked to their application identification number.
The wallet system, he said, was designed to improve payment management and enable the fund to monitor transactions associated with individual beneficiaries.
He further clarified that institutional fees and students’ upkeep allowances were processed separately under the arrangement.
The distinction allows the fund to manage tuition-related disbursements independently of financial support intended for students’ personal expenses.
The Federal Government established the student loan scheme to improve access to tertiary education by providing financial assistance to eligible students who might otherwise struggle to pay their school fees.
NELFUND’s latest measures are intended to address gaps in payment transparency while strengthening accountability among beneficiaries.
The fund maintained that improved verification procedures would help protect parents from making unnecessary tuition payments and ensure that the scheme’s resources were administered more effectively.
Ezeana Emmanuel
