The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board(JAMB) have resolved to set up a joint technical committee to fashion out modalities for speedy disbursement of the students loan to beneficiaries.
The decision to set up the technical committee was taken when both agencies of government held a meeting in Abuja as part of the efforts to actualise the provisions of the Higher Education Act 2023, otherwise known as Students Loan Act, one of the first bills President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assented to soon after his resumption to office on May 29, 2023.
The students’ loan scheme which takes effect in barely a fortnight (October 1, 2023), provides interest-free education loans for Nigerians willing to acquire tertiary education while they pay in installments two years after their participation in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.
At the meeting, Blueprint learnt, the two bodies resolved that CBN should provide the format for the required data while JAMB provides needed data for the operationalisation of the scheme.
According to examination body’s Bullettin, JAMB as a critical stakeholder is to provide the requisite database of eligible students who had enrolled in Nigerian tertiary institutions as part of the verification process for accessing the loan, while a joint technical team will facilitate the kicking-start of the process with ease.
The leader of the CBN team, Deputy Director, Mr Oyeleke Abayomi, told JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, represented by the Director of Finance and Accounts, Mr Mufutau Bello, other stakeholders such as the Federal Ministry of Education, tertiary institutions and their regulatory agencies listed in the Act, have various duties, the responsibility of the CBN was to develop an application to operationalise the disbursement of the loan.
Mr Abayomi said the meeting with the JAMB was to seek partnership in ensuring the smooth running of the loan scheme, gets the best means of validating the eligibility of students admitted into tertiary institutions vis-a-vis data supplied by applicants.
Further, he explained that every interested Nigerian student is to login and register for the loan while the CBN verifies the citizenship and admission status of the applicants, adding that the loan is to cater for tuition and upkeep.
