The Anambra State Directorate of the National Orientation Agency, NOA has vowed to intensify campaigns towards sensitizing Nigerians on the existence of the Federal Government’s Nigerian Education Loan Funds (NELFUND).
This, the State NOA Director, Barr Ifeoma Chijioke said, is with a view to ensuring that a greater percentage of Nigerian students from across the country benefit from the programme.
Barr. Chijioke, who made the remark yesterday, during a one -day house-training organized by the leadership of the agency for its staff at the headquarters in Awka, observed with great dismay that many Nigerian students were ignorant of the NELFUND programme, especially in the southeast zone.
The NOA boss, who said the federal government pays the school fees of the benefiting students through the NELFUND as well as provides #20,000 in addition as pocket money, urged students in the tertiary institutions across the 5 states of the Southeast geopolitical zone to work towards accessing the funds like their counterparts in other states of the federation.
“It is worrisome that many people in the southeast are not aware that the NELFUND exists. Those who are, feel reluctant to access the loan.
“The reality is that with the existence of this loan, it should not be heard that any student is precluded from pursuing their academic ambitions because they or their parents do not have the funds.
“That is why this campaign is very important, to educate our people on the existence of this facility so that they can take advantage of it and advance their educational pursuits,” Chijioke posited.
Lady Chijioke, charged the staff to make discipline, hard work, and fairness their watchword as they work towards their individual progress and that of the agency in the state.
She called on the staff of the agency at the local government areas of the state to open a movement register for easy supervision of their activities by the Supervisory Deputy Directors assigned to them in order to enhancing their performances at the grassroots.
In a lecture on “Prioritizing Value Orientation and Re-Orientation for Sustenance of Democracy in Nigeria”, the Deputy Director Civic, Values and Democracy Education of the agency in Awka, Mr. Remigius Obi, asked Nigerians to imbibe the tenets of good values and patriotic will as some of the measures geared towards the sustenance of true democratic governance in the country.
In another lecture, the Deputy Director of the Administration and Human Resources Department, Mrs Nkechi Onwuka, advised the participants to be conversant with Nigerian Civil Service Roles, especially the sections that deal with terminations, redundancy, discipline and leave matters, among others, to equip themselves with all the needed to know about the Nigerian Civil Service Roles in the country.
Also, the Deputy Director Abuse, Rights and Narcotics, Mrs. Ijioma Akabueze, asked the people to join forces with the government in the fight against the eradication of societal abuses such as child, women, gender, domestic abuse and human trafficking in the country.
She further told the participants to uphold citizens’ fundamental human rights at all times as well as key in the fight against narcotics and drug abuse in the present-day Nigerian society.
The event, which further featured fundamental lectures by other Deputy Director of the agency in the course of the programme on critical topics, ended with questions and answers section by the participants.
