NSFAS Administration Coming To An End
A new board and CEO have been appointed to handle the administration of NSFAS in the new year. The financial aid scheme has been under the administration of Dr Randall Carolissen and his team for two years.
The administration team will phase out on 31 December 2020. Dr Carolissen is confident that many positive changes have happened to NSFAS during his term.
“We got nsfas back on track, it’s working, we’re paying students on time, we acknowledged the receipt of their applications on time and we are able to tell them ahead of the registrations whether they qualify” he said.
Even though NSFAS has made many improvements, Carolissen feels that there is still more work to be done to address loopholes in the old administration system.
The system has faced many challenges over recent years and this year has been more challenging.
Some students will be funded over an extended time period because of Covid-19 and the extension of the 2020 academic year.
“The Covid related effects translated into an enormous increase in numbers. We have discussed that with the Minister and the President and we are planning for that”
By the end of November this year, NSFAS received more than 600 000 applications.
Now that applications have closed for 2021 funding, Carolissen predicts that a total of nearly 900 000 applications have been received.
“Last year this time we had 450 000 applicants and this year we are already anticipating about 900 000 — almost a double in new applications”
“We are seeing a lot of new students that were previously in the system funding themselves now applying and we are also seeing youth that finished their school some years back that are now applying”.
Carolissen hopes these issues will be tackled by the new CEO and administration team.
Applications can be tracked on the NSFAS website: wwww.nsfas.org.za.
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