Thirty-five thousand people have applied for the Federal Government’s student loan scheme one week after the portal went live.
This is according to the Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund Akintunde Sawyerr who said about 60,000 persons have registered on the education loan platform.
“So far, we’ve had 60,000 plus registrations. In fact, it’s registration; registration is not applications for loans. We’ve had about 50% of that,” he said on Friday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“So about 30,00 to 35,000 people have actually applied for loans. So, it’s about 50% of the registrations.”
While explaining why not all registered persons on the platform have applied for the loan, Sawyer said the situation is owing to issues from schools.
“There’s a reason for that disconnect,” he said. “So the registrations are people who have been able to access the site, go and set up an account because we allow you to set up an account, user name, and password.
“And then you’ve got a dashboard that stays with you until the end of the process. The next step is the application for the loan itself. There’s a little bit of a disconnect in that area because some of the institutions haven’t provided complete and accurate data.”
But he assured NELFUND is working to rectify the problem and make the application process seamless.
“The great thing is that we’ve captured 60,000 people for sure who want this loan,” Sawyer said. “We’re going to work through the teething problems they have and enable them to actually apply for the loan.”
The NELFUND chief also shed more light on the timeline of the student loan application.
According to him, the application portal will be open to the public all year round.
“We’ve got all year round [application]. We are starting this process and we want to make sure that we catch as many people who need this loan as possible. That’s what the president wants,” he said.