The revelation by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, that some students may be collecting loans from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) without their parents’ knowledge has triggered fresh debate over whether parents should have a formal role in the student loan process.

Oyedele made the suggestion while responding to a parent who said his three children in school had neither benefited from the scheme nor mentioned anyone they knew who had. The minister urged the parent to ask his children whether they had applied and to demand evidence of their applications.

“It is possible they’ve collected the money, and they are collecting (tuition fees) from you,” Oyedele told the parent.

The minister’s comment has reopened a question that featured prominently in the evolution of Nigeria’s student loan legislation: should parents be required to give their consent before their children can access government-backed education loans?

The question has already produced divergent views. While some stakeholders argue that parental consent is necessary to protect families from financial obligations incurred without their knowledge, others contend that making parental approval a condition for accessing NELFUND could defeat one of the scheme’s central objectives — giving financially constrained students direct access to funding for their education.

The debate is particularly significant because parental involvement was part of the controversy surrounding the evolution of the student loan legislation. The first student loan legislation signed into law by President Bola Tinubu in June 2023 faced criticism over provisions regarded by student groups as capable of limiting access to the scheme, with the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) among the leading voices calling for changes to make the loans more accessible.

The pressure eventually contributed to a review of the legislation in April 2024, with Tinubu assenting to the revised framework that established the current NELFUND structure after the earlier law was repealed and replaced.

The changes were aimed at widening access and removing conditions that could discourage eligible students from applying. In the process, however, the question of how much parents should know about their children’s borrowing appears to have receded.

Oyedele’s intervention has now brought it back into the spotlight.

The concern is not merely hypothetical. A highly placed NELFUND staff member, who spoke to The Guardian on condition of anonymity, confirmed that cases occur where students allow their parents to continue paying their institutional fees while simultaneously accessing NELFUND support without informing them.

She recalled the case of a father who approached her, distressed that his child had been unable to access the student loan. After obtaining the student’s institution details and checking the records, she discovered that the child was already among NELFUND beneficiaries.

“It was only when I asked for the child’s institution and checked the records that I discovered that the student was actually one of the beneficiaries,” she said.

The account provides a real-life dimension to the concern raised by Oyedele, but it also raises a more fundamental question: should the answer be to make parental consent a condition for accessing the loan, or should NELFUND strengthen its verification mechanisms to prevent double funding?

The question becomes even more pertinent against the background of sharp practices already seen in Nigeria’s admission system.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has repeatedly exposed cases of candidates manipulating or forging UTME results to deceive parents, sponsors and members of the public.

The most notorious recent case was that of Ejikeme Mmesoma, who claimed a UTME score of 362 in 2023, while JAMB said her actual score was 249. The Board said she manipulated her result and used the purported score to attract recognition and a scholarship. She was subsequently barred from writing the examination for three years.

For Omole Ibukun, Initiator, Creative Change Centre, however, the answer is not to give parents veto power over their children’s applications.

He argued that NELFUND was fundamentally created to finance students and that mandatory parental consent could exclude vulnerable beneficiaries whose parents are either unwilling or unable to support them financially.

“My view is that mandatory parental consent would be a very wrong approach, particularly because NELFUND is fundamentally designed as a financing mechanism for students, not their parents. Making parental approval a condition could exclude students whose parents are unwilling or unable to support them financially, including precisely the vulnerable students the scheme is supposed to reach,” he said.

Rather than making parents gatekeepers, Ibukun said NELFUND should strengthen its verification systems by electronically reconciling its disbursements with university billing and payment records to establish whether tuition had already been paid before approving funding.

“NELFUND should be able to electronically reconcile its disbursements with university billing and payment systems. Before approving tuition funding, it should verify the student’s outstanding institutional charges, confirm whether tuition has already been paid, and flag cases where the amount being requested has already been settled,” he said.

He also advocated stronger data integration between NELFUND, JAMB, tertiary institutions and relevant payment systems, with appropriate privacy safeguards, arguing that government systems should be capable of verifying information without relying entirely on students or parents to disclose it.

For parents, Ibukun supports notification rather than veto power.

He argued that where parents’ contact details are legitimately available, they should be informed when a financial obligation has been created in their child’s name, but should not necessarily have the power to prevent an eligible adult student from accessing education financing.

That position largely aligns with that of NANS, which has rejected mandatory parental consent but called for a structured system of notifying parents and guardians when students apply for or are approved for NELFUND loans.

Speaking with The Guardian, NANS Public Relations Officer, David Obidah, said the association believes parents should be kept informed without allowing their approval to become a barrier to qualified students seeking financial assistance.

“There is no need, in our view, to make mandatory parental consent a condition for accessing the NELFUND student loan. However, NANS strongly supports a structured and mandatory parental notification mechanism for students who apply for and are approved for the loan,” he said.

Obidah said tertiary institutions already collect the contact details of parents and guardians during admission and registration, adding that NELFUND could work with institutions to use the existing records to notify parents whenever their children apply for or are approved for the loan.

He stressed that there was a crucial difference between parental consent and notification, arguing that the objective should be to ensure parents are aware that NELFUND is financing their child’s education rather than making their approval a prerequisite for accessing the support.

According to him, mandatory consent could introduce additional bureaucratic hurdles, particularly for students whose parents live far away, have limited access to digital platforms or are unavailable to respond within a specified period.

“The student loan scheme is fundamentally intended to provide timely financial assistance to students who need it. Parents should be informed, but parental consent should not necessarily determine whether a qualified student receives the loan,” he said.

Obidah urged NELFUND and tertiary institutions to establish an efficient notification system capable of reaching parents and guardians through SMS, email and other verifiable channels.

He also cautioned that any safeguard introduced into the loan process should not be based on the assumption that every student has a parent who is financially capable of paying their fees or readily available to participate in the application process.

The emerging consensus among those opposed to mandatory consent, therefore, is that the issue is less about giving parents control over their adult children’s access to education financing and more about ensuring transparency when public funds are involved.

For NELFUND, that may mean moving beyond reliance on declarations by students and building systems capable of detecting when tuition has already been paid, when a student has received funding and when a potential case of double financing exists.

Oyedele’s remark may have reopened the debate over parental consent, but the more practical question now confronting the student loan scheme is whether parents should have the power to stop their children from borrowing — or simply the right to know that they have borrowed.

For NANS and other stakeholders opposed to mandatory consent, the answer is clear: notify parents, but do not make their approval a condition for access.