NELFUND Reports 35,000 Student Loan Applications Despite School Data Issues
Sawyer explained that not all registered individuals have applied for the loan due 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.
Binye-lum 
Thirty-five thousand people have applied for the Federal Government’s student loan scheme one week after the portal went live, according to Akintunde Sawyerr, Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND). Sawyerr also noted that about 60,000 individuals 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 Channels Television’s Politics Today. “So about 30,000 to 35,000 people have actually applied for loans. So, it’s about 50% of the registrations.”
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Sawyer explained that not all registered individuals have applied for the loan due 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.”
He assured that NELFUND is working to rectify the problem and streamline the application process. “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.”
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Sawyer also mentioned that the application portal will remain open 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.
