The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has announced that it will begin expanding its loan scheme to cover vocational and skills acquisition centres across Nigeria, starting with Enugu State, within the next six to eight weeks, which is late June and mid-July.
This disclosure was made during a strategic engagement and sensitisation campaign in Enugu State, attended by key officials from NELFUND and the Enugu State Government.
Mr. Akintunde Sawyerr, the Managing Director of NELFUND, emphasized the Fund’s intent to support technical education in skills centres nationwide, including fashion design and other vocations. He said Enugu has been selected as a starting point for the programme’s rollout.
“We are working on it now, and we’re going to have some discussions with the executive governor and his team, because we want to start it here.
The president has also instructed that we focus on areas where the governments or the institutions of state and instruments are ready to work with us, so that we can have a quick takeoff. I think that within the next six to eight weeks, you will see us kick something off,” he said.
Why start with Enugu
During a tour of the Enugu Garments and Fashion Hub, NELFUND’s Executive Director of Operations, Mr. Iyal Mustapha, highlighted Enugu’s preparedness and existing infrastructure, stating that the state had one of the best vocational and skills training facilities seen so far.
“Presently, we have other states, almost more than 10 states that we have seen such but then, Enugu is one of the best.
“Enugu is going to be one of the first states or one of the first locations we are looking at to start. With what I see, there is a lot of positivity.
We have seen different skill centers from the technical colleges to the vocational skill centers, like the fashion design, and they are all very positive for us at NELFUND. I would not say that Enugu will be the only state, but one of the first states to start with,” he said.
How the vocational loan will work
Explaining how the loan scheme will be implemented, Mustapha said beneficiaries will be able to apply through an online portal once it opens.
The scheme would cater to training costs, offer upkeep stipends, and provide tools upon training completion.
“We are going to have these centers in place to say if you apply from Enugu this is where to go in Enugu. We are going to pay for their training costs, we are going to be giving them upkeep and at the end of the day, they will have some working tools when they finish their training.”
“We are still trying to complete that into our guidelines. The training costs is based on what the centre is proposing, that’s what we are paying, but the institutional charges is going to be part of the loan because it’s to support them with the transport coming to these skill centres.
“It’s a work in progress, and the country is always evolving. The government is seeing the value in skills and vocation just to support the community.”
More insights
Special Adviser to the Governor on Digital Economy and MSMEs and Director General of the Enugu SME Centre, Mr. Arinze Chilo-Offiah, said the state government is committed to youth empowerment through skills development.
“We just wanted to show them the world class facilities we have here to let NELFUND know that we are ready to key into the skills acquisition component of the fund.
One component is to take care of school fees and upkeep of tertiary institution students, the other aspect is vocational skills. We just came from the Government Technical College (GTC) revamped world-class facilities there, we are also showing them our fashion hub.
As you can see, Enugu is ready to absorb all the support from NELFUND. They will be able to provide us with zero-interest loans for training in fashion.”
“We have about 150 industrial sewing machines here, we have world-class monogramming machines. We can sit at any given point in time, 300 plus or closer to 500,” he said
The NELFUND team also visited several educational and vocational institutions during their tour in Enugu, including the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu College of Education Technical, Government Technical College (GTC) – currently undergoing reconstruction.
