NELFUND Plans Parent Verification System to Stop Double Payment of School Fees

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has announced plans to introduce a system that will allow parents to verify whether their children’s school fees have been paid through the government’s student loan scheme.

The initiative is part of efforts to prevent alleged cases of students receiving financial support from NELFUND while still asking their parents to pay tuition fees already covered by the fund.

NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed the plan during a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, October 28, saying the fund intended to strengthen transparency and address concerns about how some beneficiaries manage their tuition payments.

He said the fund had identified situations in which students benefited from the loan scheme but continued to rely on their parents to cover school fees.

“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,” Sawyerr said.

“We are going to put an end to that.”

Parents to verify school fee payments

Under the proposed arrangement, parents would be able to check whether NELFUND had paid their children’s tuition fees without necessarily being given access to the amount involved.

The planned verification platform is intended to help parents establish the payment status before releasing money for tuition, reducing the risk of paying for fees that have already been settled through the scheme.

The proposal comes amid efforts to improve communication among students, parents, tertiary institutions and NELFUND over the processing and confirmation of institutional payments.

However, the proposed system should not be interpreted as evidence that every student whose parents pay school fees after receiving a loan is deliberately withholding information. NELFUND officials have also identified cases where students paid their fees independently because they did not know that the fund had already made payment to their institutions.

New payment system to reduce duplicate transactions

NELFUND is also piloting a tokenised payment arrangement designed to give students greater control over when approved tuition payments are made.

Under the proposed process, beneficiaries would receive notifications when their approved fees are ready for payment and would authorise transactions through their phones. The money would then be transferred directly to the designated institution.

The token would be linked to the institution for which the payment was approved, preventing the funds from being transferred to a student’s personal account or redirected to another school.

Sawyerr explained that delays in communicating completed payments had sometimes caused students to pay their institutions independently, only to discover later that NELFUND had already settled the same bills.

He said the revised process was intended to reduce such cases and the resulting complications associated with refunds.

The new arrangement does not mean students will receive tuition funds as unrestricted cash. Instead, it is designed to allow them to authorise payments while restricting how the approved funds can be used.

Tuition fees and upkeep allowances remain separate

NELFUND Executive Director, Mustapha Iyal, explained that institutional payments and upkeep allowances follow different processes.

According to him, the fund uses students’ application identification numbers and wallet arrangements for institutional payment processing, rather than conventional bank account numbers.

Upkeep allowances, which are intended to assist beneficiaries with living expenses, are processed separately and transferred to students’ personal bank accounts through payment channels.

Iyal said the fund used services including NIBSS Instant Payments and Paystack for upkeep transfers because NELFUND is not a banking institution.

He added that delays could sometimes occur because of the financial institutions involved in processing the transactions.

The distinction is important because the new tokenised payment arrangement concerns tuition and other approved institutional charges, rather than unrestricted access to upkeep funds.

NELFUND plans nationwide stakeholder workshops

To improve understanding of the revised procedures, the fund plans to organise re-education workshops across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones.

Sawyerr said the engagements would involve students, parents and tertiary institutions, with the aim of explaining how institutional payments, upkeep allowances and required documentation work under the scheme.

He said the exercise would go beyond ordinary public sensitisation by addressing specific changes to the payment process and the responsibilities of different stakeholders.

The fund’s Executive Director also reported that the payment-system pilot covered about 400,000 students or applications, while transactions were being processed for nearly 5,000 students daily. The precise distinction between applications received, students covered by the pilot and transactions processed should be confirmed before those figures are interpreted as a measure of completed payments.

NELFUND administers the Federal Government’s interest-free student loan programme, which provides eligible students with financial support for institutional charges and, where requested and approved, upkeep expenses.

The effectiveness of the new measures will depend on clear communication, timely payment notifications and accurate records shared among the fund, beneficiaries and their institutions.