The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has urged President Bola Tinubu to relax the eligibility criteria for the student loan scheme.
The launch of the scheme was postponed again on Tuesday to fine-tune the modalities of its implementation.
Speaking on Channels TV on Thursday, NANS President, Lucky Emonefe, expressed concerns that the initial requirements might exclude many deserving students.
He said, “When we visited Mr President we talked about the criteria for accessing the loan. The intention of this loan is having students to access it.
“Those who cannot afford education fees and charges during the course of the educational process would have access; the children of the common people can have access to education.
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“While doing that this access must be open to everybody. When you look at those criteria initially put, there are stringent conditions such as having level 12 civil servant, a lawyer that has served for 10 years.
“We pleaded that not all Nigerian students can meet up these conditions. We visited the president, Nigerian students pleaded that the conditions should come down so that students can access the loan because the purpose of the loan is accessing it and having access to education.
“Mr President told us that he wants all Nigerian students who want to learn to have access to education, so those conditions I think they are working on them.
“We want a situation whereby if you are a Nigerian student, you have your NIN, BVN, admission letter, of course you should have access to this loan. This is our position, we want a situation where by all students who are in tertiary institutions have access to it.”
