KUALA LUMPUR: The Maju Institute of Educational Development (MIED), MIC's education arm, has been receiving more applications for student loans, but the number of approvals is likely to be reduced due to financial constraints caused by defaulters.

MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said although non-performing loans had been reduced to 17 per cent, the fact that other students were being denied access to these funds remained an urgent matter for MIED.

Besides legal action against defaulters, Samy Vellu said the loan programme had been restructured by allocating funds on a yearly basis and not for the duration of the course.

For instance, if a student pursued a three-year course, MIED would allocate funds for the first year only.

Money for the remaining two years would depend on the student's academic performance and additional funds provided by the student's family.

He said this after presenting MIED loans to 185 applicants, amounting to RM1.5 million at the MIC headquarters yesterday. Of the 185, 90 will pursue medicine.

He said since the loan programme was established in the 1980s, about RM90 million had been disbursed to 8,500 students to pursue tertiary education.

On the recent public university intake, he reminded Indian students who failed to secure a seat to submit their appeal to the MIC by June 26.

The party had requested for an eight per cent intake for Indian students, but had to settle for 6.84 per cent this year.