The number of students who are supported by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme NSFAS has grown exponentially over the last decade - but it seems that so too have the complaints.
While they organisation has made great strides to digitalise their operations and implement a student-centred model where all students can communicated directly with the funder - getting answers hasn't always been easy for students.
Problems with receiving student allowances have been persisting into 2024 - leaving the students most in-need without funding for their living costs. Reports in the last week have come from campuses across the country of students organisations calling for a national shutdown of universities.
TVET College students from many campuses across the country could have joined such protests. The organising body for university management, Universities South Africa, have been warning that the shutdown would pose a significant risk to both the students and their universities.
The person who takes most of the flak for all the NSFAS problems is Minister for Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande. The Minister doesn't have direct control over the operations of NSFAS as it is a seperate organisation with its own management structure which reports to its own board. But when student organisations get upset the chant is always, 'Blade must fall!'.
In a flurry of activity on Thursday, Minister Nzimande first issued a media statement in the afternoon to reassure students that a task team would be established to deal with any allowances that were not paid - or were short paid.
In his statement he said:
The Minister also wishes to take this opportunity to sincerely apologise to all affected students for the inconvenience that they have been experiencing, as a result of the non-payment of allowances.
The Minister also wishes to assure both the students and the public that both he and the Department, are working around the clock to ensure that all deserving students receive the necessary support from NSFAS."
NSFAS Board To Be Dissolved
Just to show that they really are working around the clock, at 9pm there was another media statement announcing that the Minister had met with the NSFAS Board where he'd told they that they were all sacked. The Board has been dissolved and the Minister will be placing an Administrator in charge or the organisation.
This is not the first time the Minister has done this, with the previous Administrator Dr Randall Carolissen running NSFAS under his tenure in 2020. He had previously been appointed by Naledi Pandor when she was Higher Education Minister.
The appointment of an Administrator allows the Minister to have more direct control over the organisation. The Administrator covers both the management and board roles - and reports directly to the Minister.
NSFAS Direct Payment System
The current round of problems with student allowances stem back to the controversial decision taken by the previous NSFAS CEO and Board to appoint 4 inexperienced 'fintech' companies to disburse the student allowances to beneficiaries. It would have been much simpler to continue to use the NSFAS wallet system, or use the current SA banking system to pay allowances to students.
The decision to add the 'fintech' companies didn't make sense and was later reversed by the Board. However the system couldn't simply be cancelled without a replacement in place to pay student allowances.
The plan in place from NSFAS was for university administrations to pay their students their allowances directly. This has worked well with some universities but not others.
A Government Gazette will be released on Friday bringing legal certainty to the Minister's decision with a media briefing planned to be held on Sunday afternoon for the Minister to go into more details about his plans to finally solve the problems at NSFAS.
He will doubtless be hoping that his swift action will reassure students that their concerns are being taken seriously and they will be convinced to call off their protest action.
