NSFAS applications set to open on Friday following delays - SABC ...

Following some delays in the process, applications for funding under the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) are opening on Friday 20 September 2024.

In a press briefing held earlier this week by the Department of Higher Education and NSFAS earlier this week, Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane said the delay was due to extended stakeholder engagement and to allow the system to do a dry run of the online application system.

NSFAS, which provides bursaries and loans to underprivileged students in institutions of higher education (Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and public universities) – has in the past couple years been marred by a series of controversies, ranging from the misallocation of funds to non-existent ‘ghost’ students, non-allocation of student allowances, corruption, questionable leadership, and the entity being under administration.

The scheme has also been under scrutiny for failing to keep up with the increasing demand for funding as the student population is growing.

The scheme offers bursaries to households earning up to R350 000 per year, with loans available for “missing middle” families with incomes between R350 001 and R600 000 annually.

A key asset in the education sector, NFSAS oversees an annual budget of over R54 billion, but it has been in limbo for some time, particularly in the past 12 months.

The agency has been without a board since April 2024, when former higher education minister Blade Nzimande dissolved it, due to irregularities that were found in the payment system when students did not receive their allowances.

The former minister also placed the financial aid scheme under administration, and many months later it is still operating without a CEO, chief financial officer, and chief audit executive (CAE).

More recently, NSFAS has recently come under fire in Parliament for the contract for the NSFAS Cape Town head office, with the exorbitant cost of rental at R2.5 million per month.

Minister Nkabane, who is still fairly new in the department, said she is committed to ‘rooting out corruption and maladministration in NSFAS’ in her maiden budget speech in Parliament in July.

She briefed Parliament’s appropriations committee in early September on the challenges facing the aid scheme and gave assurance that a new board will be appointed by October this year.

Earlier in the week, the minister announced the scheme’s controversial R2.5 million monthly office rental in Cape Town had been cancelled and smaller regional offices would be set up in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal, where the need for funding is greatest.

She also said they were also exploring NSFAS satellite offices in other provinces.

It is still too early to predict how everything will turn out and how the new minister will fare in her new portfolio, as she hasn’t even finished 100 days in office, but the NSFAS situation will serve as a kind of litmus test for her.