The South African Students Congress (SASCO) led a march to the Higher Education Department in Pretoria and handed over a memorandum of demands following the non-payment of NSFAS allowances for several months.
The protest follows a decision taken by NSFAS to defund students, along with the non-payment of accommodation allowances.
SASCO’s Mega Tshwane Regional Chairperson Kagisho Sedikila says students have been forced to deregister and are being evicted from their residences due to NSFAS defunding, despite qualifying for support.
They said the protest was necessary as attempts to have their voices heard through official communication channels have been exhausted.
The only way to communicate is through email, which receives countless messages daily, with no responses. The call centre is also unresponsive,
SASCO National Spokesperson, Thuto Mashila, described the defunding of students as a repeated system failure. This as students have previously been funded by the bursary scheme during the academic year.
Mashila lamented NSFAS for originally funding students only to later remove it, leaving students in a state of limbo.
We have students who were funded in January, they received their status saying that they were funded, but now are getting de-funded by NSFAS and their registration data, so that they can receive their allowances has not been transferred from universities to NSFAS, and this, of course, harms the academic performance of students.
Mashile adds that some accommodation providers are still owed money by NSFAS for previous academic years. They revealed that some of these accommodation providers agreed to assist students, but are put in a challenging position when students still don’t receive payments from the government bursary scheme.
Ayabulela Mlisa, NSFAS stakeholder management, says he received the memorandum of demands and assured students that steps will be taken to issue an official response within seven days.
Mlisa added that the Minister of Higher Education, Nobuhle Nkabane, has committed to engaging with student leaders before the end of the week.
She has made a commitment that she will meet [with] the leadership of students before the end of this week. That will be before we even respond to the issues raised in the memorandum.
