The federal government says it is working out modalities to begin student loans between September and October 2023.

The permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejo, disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday while addressing reporters on the bill signed by President Bola Tinubu.

On Monday, Mr Tinubu signed into law the Student Loan Bill in fulfilment of a promise he made during his campaign.

The student loan bill sponsored by the speaker of the ninth House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, provides interest-free loans to indigent Nigerian students.

Mr Adejo said the law would provide easy access to higher education for indigent Nigerians through interest-free loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.

He said the loan covers the loan students in private and public schools.

He said Mr Tinubu had also approved a committee made up of ministries and agencies to see to the fruition of the loan scheme.

“Learning from past mistakes, the bank is not going to be the type that will sit down and be collecting application loans.

”It will also perform normal banking functions and make sure loans are given because we had cases of loan recovery in the past.

“The president has also directed that by September to October this 2023/2024 academic session, he wants to see recipients of these loans. So it is a very serious march for us so between now and then, we have to phantom the process for people to get the loan,” he said.

The permanent secretary also said the government would create a specialised bank for the operation of the loans, noting that there would be a tracking system for the efficient, smooth running of the loans scheme.

He said this would cover both students in private and public schools, adding that the government would also create a new bank for it.

“We are not going to use existing banks. We are going to create a new bank that will address this because we can’t use an existing bank.

“We don’t want to make it that only people who want to go to public schools will benefit from it, private schools are paying tuition, so you have to give them the opportunity,” he said.

(NAN)