In a statement on the state of readiness of higher education institutions for the 2023 academic year the South African Union of Students (SAUS) said it believes that institutions are largely ready to commence the registration period without many issues.
The union did however express concern about the late release of the National Senior Certificate Matric results by the Department of Basic Education as this caused the commencement of registration at higher education institutions to be delayed.
SAUS has also criticized the date on which the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) will release their funding decisions for new and returning students.
NSFAS announced that funding decisions will be released on 6 February 2023 and SAUS says this is unnecessarily late and the union believes this will also add to further delays in finalizing registrations and commencing the academic year at institutions.
"We must make it clear, that any delays of funding decisions post the 6th of February will be deemed as an insult and a deliberate frustration of the registration period and in turn will be met with the necessary actions." said SAUS.
NSFAS reportedly received more than 1.5 million applications from prospective students for 2023.
As of 31 January 2023 the number of provisionally funded applications amounted to 613,909 applications, of which 338,320 are continuing-students and 275,589 are new applicants.
The bursary scheme has a budget of R47 billion for the year and they expect to make upfront payments of approximately R3.5 billion to universities and R2.7 billion to TVET colleges.
