NELFUND Introduces Parents’ Portal to Verify Students’ School Fees

NELFUND plans an online portal for parents to verify school fee payments, alongside a digital wallet system for direct tuition payments to institutions.

Parents will soon be able to check online whether the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has paid their children’s tuition fees, under a proposed verification portal designed to prevent students from collecting school fees from their families after benefiting from the loan scheme.

The portal will allow parents to enter their children’s matriculation numbers to verify payment status, with the platform displaying only whether the fees have been paid or remain outstanding, without disclosing the amount involved or other sensitive financial details.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, saying the initiative was part of efforts to strengthen transparency and prevent students from receiving financial support from both the Fund and their parents for the same tuition fees.

The development comes as the Fund introduces a digital wallet system that will enable beneficiaries to authorise the payment of approved tuition fees directly to their institutions, in a move to address duplicate payments and difficulties associated with obtaining refunds from schools.

Sawyerr explained that the parents’ portal was being developed in response to concerns that some students whose tuition had been covered by NELFUND continued to collect money from their parents without disclosing their funding status.

He said the portal would give parents a simple way to establish whether their children’s fees had been settled before releasing money for tuition.

“This development is based on us recognising that there are still many students out there who are double dipping; they’re taking from NELFUND and still stressing their parents. So we’re going to put an end to that,” he said.

The initiative also follows concerns raised in August by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, who suggested that some students might have received NELFUND funding without their parents’ knowledge.

Oyedele made the observation while responding to an audience member who said his three children in tertiary institutions had yet to benefit from the scheme and that he was unaware of any of their friends who had received the financial support.

Sawyerr said the proposed portal would help close the information gap between students and their parents while protecting beneficiaries’ financial privacy.

He said the Fund is also introducing a restricted digital wallet through which students will authorise tuition payments to their respective institutions using their phones.

Under the arrangement, approved fees will be credited to a digital wallet linked to the beneficiary’s institution. Students can then authorise payment directly to their schools without receiving the money in cash or having it transferred into their personal bank accounts.

Sawyerr said the system would prevent the diversion of tuition funds, as each digital token would be tied to a specific institution and could only be used to pay the designated school.

He explained that the existing arrangement, under which NELFUND paid institutions directly after verifying students’ applications, had sometimes resulted in duplicate payments.

According to him, some students, unaware that the Fund had already paid their fees, proceeded to make payments independently to meet school deadlines, only to discover later that NELFUND had settled the bills.

“We’re placing the power for payment in the hands of the students. The power for payment to the institution is going to now be walletised so that they can click on their phone and the institution can be paid,” he said.

He stressed that the system would not give students access to cash but would allow them to control when approved fees were paid to their institutions.

“They never see the cash. It’s a walletised, or some people might call it a tokenised system. We’re not giving the students money, but we’re giving them power,” he added.

The Fund’s Executive Director, Mustapha Iyal, said the wallet-based payment system was undergoing pilot implementation, with more than 400,000 applications in the system at the time of the briefing.

Iyal explained that the token was linked to a specific institution rather than a personal or mobile money wallet, ensuring that the funds could only be used for their intended purpose.

He said the new arrangement was expected to take effect in the 2026/2027 academic session, adding that NELFUND was working to ensure institutions acknowledged payments promptly and students received timely notifications.

Under the proposed process, once a student authorises payment, the institution will receive the money directly into its account. The student can then obtain a receipt from the institution’s bursary or finance department.

Iyal also advised students to apply for loans early rather than waiting until close to examinations or payment deadlines, warning that late applications could create avoidable payment complications.

Sawyerr also announced plans to organise a two-day regional workshops across the six geopolitical zones to prepare tertiary institutions, students and other stakeholders for the implementation of the upgraded NELFUND 2.0 application system.

The workshops will bring together institutional heads, bursars, information technology administrators, students and community representatives to improve application processing, verification, technical readiness and public awareness.

Expected outcomes include better-trained institutional teams, improved application and verification procedures, faster processing of student applications and stronger regional support networks.

Sawyerr said the engagements had become necessary as awareness of the scheme continued to grow, driving increased demand for student loans.

He disclosed that NELFUND had more than one million beneficiaries and anticipated that applications could rise significantly, potentially reaching two million, clarifying that the projection referred to applications rather than an increase in available funding.

He said the Fund was strengthening its technology, administrative processes and institutional support systems to cope with the expected demand.

Sawyerr commended President Bola Tinubu for supporting the student loan scheme, which he said was helping to expand access to financial assistance for students in tertiary institutions.