The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Dr Blade Nzimande, provided a plan of action for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) for the 2023 academic year during the National Assembly. Nzimande stated that the bursary’s budget for the year is projected to be around R47.6 billion.
NSFAS has agreed to provisionally fund 1 083 055 students for the 2023 academic year. This is a huge milestone in the government’s commitment to funding students from underprivileged backgrounds.
The department ensured that all NSFAS students would be able to register for the academic year without making any upfront payments, such as the registration fee. In the past, NSFAS students have had to wait for NSFAS to provide them with their allowance so that they could register for the academic year, which meant students missed out on valuable learning time.
However, this year NSFAS made an upfront payment to TVET colleges and public universities to ensure that all bursary students were allowed to register before classes began. Some students, unfortunately, experienced delays with their registration process.
In order to address these registration delays, the department will be meeting with university registrars in the weeks to come. All the matters will be handled to ensure that NSFAS recipients are not excluded or disadvantaged.
NSFAS also paid out student allowances to allow students to cover the costs of travelling, learning materials, food and accommodation. A direct payment platform and student accommodation platform have been enabled to address challenges previously encountered.
Issues with allowances and accommodation negatively impacted the well-being of students. Instead of focusing on their studies, students were worried about how they were going to get food for the month, pay for learning materials and where they were going to stay while studying.
Therefore, NSFAS ensured that this year would be different. The department aims to provide students with the resources and support that they need to thrive in their degree or course.
