The 2024 academic year is now done with the new year about to commence. Many will now be wondering whether the higher education sector, especially the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) would be ready on time.
2024 saw many controversies and issues come to light at NSFAS. NSFAS allowance delays, the firing of the NSFAS Board and the organisation being put under Administration, students being evicted due to outstanding accommodation allowances and the list doesn't end there.
The NSFAS Administrator, Freeman Nomvalo, has said that progress has been made but that there is more that needs to be done in 2025. A message that is echoed by the South African Union of Students (SAUS) Spokesperson, Asive Dlanjwa.
Student Concerns
SAUS has said that they are concerned about the disconnect between NSFAS and universities. Every year when the academic year commences at universities, registration would begin with students not knowing their NSFAS application outcomes.
Dlanjwa explains that some students can't afford to pay the registration fee themselves but without confirmation from NSFAS, they are left in limbo.
The students of the poor did not have money at hand and they were waiting for NSFAS, they ended up forfeiting their spaces to those that could afford. There are hundreds and thousands of students that unfortunately suffered this fate.
The Administrator has said that students with a "provisionally funded" NSFAS status can register when their institution's registration opens. After this, NSFAS can confirm your funding and put plans in place to make disbursements.
Nomvalo announced, "We are confident that by the 31st of December, all those applications will have been processed if all of the information is submitted".
Close-Out Project
Delay in TVET College NSFAS allowance payments due to the absence of annual financial statements from previous years. Nomvalo explained that this then made it difficult for funds to be raised so that fees which are not covered by government can get paid.
Nomvalo revealed that NSFAS has submitted the financial statements up until the end of March 2024, saying, "we are currently preparing the 2024/25 financial statements which we believe will be tabled in time this year".
NSFAS has also been working on the Close-Out Project which leaves some reconciliations unfinished, resulting in students being in limbo.
The Administrator said that NSFAS has received all the needed information from TVET Colleges up until 2022 with some information for 2023 still being outstanding. Universities have submitted all their information resulting in the finalisation of University reconciliations.
This will make sure that those students who were still in limbo were probably funded but the information between us and the institutions were not properly reconciled and therefore have not been disbursed for them and they weren't able to get their results.
Nomvalo predicts that the close-out processes will be completed in 2025.
NSFAS Appeals
There has also been a backlog to appeals being processed as NSFAS has been in the process of responding to 80 000 appeals with only "a few thousand left", says the Administator.
SAUS has however criticised NSFAS for their appeals processes explaining that after appealing, some students with unemployed parents were still rejected.
NSFAS Allowance Payments
In 2022, NSFAS announced that students will receive allowance payments through a Direct Payment solution, the NSFAS Bank Account. Soon after this was launched, complaints were endless and corruption allegations arose.
This then resulted in NSFAS announcing that the NSFAS bank account should no longer be used by students and back-up payment plans had to be made.
For TVET College students, NSFAS would pay allowances directly into their bank accounts and universities will pay allowances to students directly.
This was a major improvement with SAUS saying that after the Administration began and the NSFAS bank account was cancelled, students were receiving allowances on time.
NSFAS has however been unable to put direct payments to personal bank accounts in place for university students due to an ongoing court case with Nomvalo saying:
The court case that we are facing has stalled that process to be completed.
The delay seen in payment of student accommodation allowances has had a negative impact on students as some landlords evict students who are unable to pay on time. Nomvalo has said that NSFAS has made progress when it comes to paying these outstanding allowances.
"We still see a risk in that there are a few landlords that still come forward and say they have payments outstanding and those landlords might create problems for us in January. We have to put a plan in place so that we are able to respond to those quickly."
NSFAS is in the process of making payments in early January to prepare for the beginning of the academic year.
A lot of progress has been made to stabilise the sector but there are still issues that need to be attended to and unfortunately these issues affect the lives of students negatively.
Dlanjwa has however said that these delays are due to "criminality", "greed" and "a lack of leadership" at NSFAS.