In the past few years, students funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) in public universities and Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges have had difficulties when it comes to accessing their monthly allowances.
Recently, Nsfas introduced a new allowance payment method to make sure that bursary recipients face minimal challenges to none, when it comes to accessing their allowances.
In a statement, Nsfas said:
This is to cater for the ever-increasing number of beneficiaries and large amounts of funds to be disbursed.
Nsfas has an estimated 900 000 students being funded by the government bursary. However, not all these students will be on boarded onto the new payment system immediately as Nsfas will pilot this solution with a set number of students first.
It is said that this will be followed by the full roll-out which will occur in a phased-in approach.
To access their allowances, students will be provided with a MasterCard and a bank account where monthly allowances will be disbursed directly, on a monthly basis.
According to Nsfas, students will receive notifications via SMS, email or other platforms at different points of their transacting journeys, allowing them to have complete visibility of all transactions and balances.
Nsfas spokesperson Kagisho Mamabolo, said the new solution will be introduced with the assistance of third-party financial services providers.
Mamabolo has also confirmed that Nsfas will use selected distribution partners such as Coinvest, eZaga, Morocco and Tenet Technology.
