The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has announced plans to create a centralised job portal aimed at providing student loan beneficiaries with early access to employment opportunities both within and outside Nigeria.
Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this during a media engagement in Abuja on Thursday to mark one year since the scheme’s launch. He clarified that while the job portal would improve access to job listings, it does not guarantee automatic employment for beneficiaries.
According to him, the portal will pool job opportunities from public and private sector employers as well as international recruiters interested in hiring Nigerians.
“We don’t just give a loan and leave students on their own. This job portal is our way of supporting their journey toward economic stability,” Sawyerr said.
He also reiterated that loan repayment will only begin after beneficiaries have completed their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and secured employment.
“If you don’t have a job, you don’t pay. And when you eventually get a job, your repayment starts fresh,” he said.
Sawyer added that 10 per cent of a beneficiary’s monthly salary would be automatically deducted by their employer and remitted to NELFUND after confirmation through the Fund’s employment register. He explained that deductions would pause if the beneficiary loses their job or resigns, and the loan would be written off in the event of death.
Speaking on complaints from students who had paid their fees before NELFUND disbursed to their institutions, Sawyerr appealed to schools to refund such students.
“We’ve received multiple petitions from students who paid under duress only to find their fees had also been paid by NELFUND,” he said. “Institutions must refund this money. It’s disappointing that some schools have ignored this responsibility.”
He also disclosed that investigative agencies like the ICPC and EFCC have been involved in questioning some institutions that failed to make these refunds. For schools unable to pay students directly, he said they could return the funds to NELFUND for onward disbursement to the affected students.
Also speaking at the event, Executive Director of Operations, Mustapha Iyal, revealed that NELFUND currently manages over 3.2 million student records and is targeting one million new applications by the end of 2025.
He explained that while the figure is a projection and not a target, the Fund’s primary goal remains to prevent students from dropping out of school due to financial constraints.
“What we’re looking at this year, from now to the end of the year, we’re looking at about 1 million applications. We’re not pushing. We’re not saying that it’s compulsory. But we’re looking at how can we support 1 million applications to make sure that no one is dropping out of school,” Iyal said.
