postgrad funding

Postgraduate study is the next step for students who have completed their undergraduate studies. Postgraduate courses are usually studied after obtaining a diploma or bachelor’s degree, and they lead to master’s or doctoral (PhD) qualifications.

NSFAS pulling funding for postgraduate qualifications hit many students hard this year. Now, NSFAS has said that they are looking to raise funds and find donors to fund postgraduate qualifications.

Chevening provides full funding for one-year master's degrees at UK universities. You can now apply for a Chevening Scholarship for the 2022/2023 academic year.

Early this year, students started hearing that their postgraduate studies won't be funded as they thought they would after NSFAS said that they no longer fund postgrad qualifications. This obviously left many students with little to no options.

Wits' Student Representative Council has announced that the University has agreed to pay the fees of LLB students who were hurt by NSFAS' decision to no longer fund the qualification. NSFAS made the decision early this year that they would no longer be funding postgraduate qualifications.

With very short notice after NSFAS announced that they would no longer be funding postgraduate qualification, PGCE students were left without funding. Thousands of students are now calling for NSFAS to reverse this decision and fund PGCE students again.

Due to NSFAS having insufficient funds earlier this year, they then had to reallocate funds within the department. Unfortunately, this has now lead to other areas of the department facing the consequences.

The issue of postgrad funding has been a major issue for a while now and NSFAS has added fuel to that fire. NSFAS has said that they will not fund any postgrad qualifications anymore as there are not enough resources available to do so.

The issue of missing middle funding, along with postgraduate funding, is ongoing. The Minister of Higher Education is now pushing for NSFAS to introduce a loan scheme to support these categories of students.

Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande, gave updates on NSFAS laptops, NSFAS allowances and funding, Unisa and many other topics which are currently being discussed in Higher Education. This is in response to a list of demands submitted to the Minister by the South African Union of Students.

The NRF is introducing a new funding policy for postgrad students (from 2021 onwards) with the aim of motivating and retaining high academic achievers. The new policy also provides time off for female students to raise a family during their postgrad studies.

Dr Randall Carolissen, NSFAS Administrator, spoke to SASCO about NSFAS procedures. Many things such as allowances, appeals and the issuing of devices was discussed.

NRF-funded students have to complete their studies within a set timeframe. Only under exceptional circumstances may students apply for extension support to complete their Master’s or Doctoral studies.

The National Research Fund is implementing a new funding model for postgraduate funding. This will include the Full Cost of Study and Partial Cost of Study.

The National Research Fund funds full-time postgraduate degrees from Honours to Doctoral level. Grantholder-linked scholarships and BTech are not supported under the new funding model.

The National Research Fund has announced that they will have additional provisional awards for honours and final year BTech studies in 2020. 

The National Research Fund (NRF) has released a statements concerning where they currently stand and how operations will be affected amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The NRF is responsible for funding many postgrad qualifications.