The Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has announced the complete digitisation of its Student Loan Application System (SLAS), aimed at simplifying and speeding up the loan application process for both students and institutions across the country.
According to a statement issued on Wednesday by the Fund’s Director of Corporate Communications, Oseyemi Oluwatuyi, the digital upgrade now mandates all accredited institutions to formally request access to the platform in order to verify and upload student data linked to loan applications.
“With this upgrade, all accredited institutions are now required to request access to SLAS to verify and upload student data related to loan applications. This is a critical step that ensures the timely processing and disbursement of approved student loans,” Oluwatuyi stated.
The Fund further appealed to institutions yet to be onboarded onto the system to urgently send their access requests to registration@nelf.gov.ng to begin the integration process.
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Once access is granted, institutions will be able to monitor their students’ loan applications through a real-time dashboard, verify submitted information, and track the progress of each application.
“We urge all institutions to take immediate action in the interest of their students, as verification and data upload by the institutions are mandatory steps before final approval and disbursement can be completed,” the statement added.
The student loan initiative is a major policy project of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the education sector.
Just weeks after assuming office, the president signed into law the Access to Higher Education Act, establishing a legal framework for granting interest-free loans to students from low-income backgrounds to help them pay for their tertiary education in public institutions.
The Act, which has since been reenacted, led to the creation of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, which now oversees the implementation of the programme.
