How they passed the scheme’s checks and balances has not been explained.
No-one has resigned or been fired from the scheme in the face of this shocking waste of resources.
Those who sought to appeal against their defunding or the scheme’s failure to consider their applications, face an obdurate and opaque online system.
Interactions with actual humans seems an impossibility and NSFAS helplines are notoriously “congested”.
One Rhodes University student has resorted to taking the scheme to court after a year of daily facing the dreaded words “awaiting evaluation” on the NSFAS online portal.
No doubt there are thousands of other frustrated and desperate students who will be waiting to see the outcome of her court case.
One of the most pressing recent disasters has been the fund’s decision to outsource the disbursement of student allowances to four financial service providers that seem ill-equipped to do the job.
Too many students in the Eastern Cape have had to do without their allowances for months, due to the flawed migration to the new so-called “direct payment” system.
Others complain of the excessive fee structures by the service providers that take an unhealthy chunk out of the allowances which they rely on to survive.
NSFAS incompetence has become a recurring source of destructive protests at our tertiary institutions.
Tuition was halted for days and valuable university property destroyed during these protests — all thanks to the incompetence of the institution entrusted with billions to fund the education of our youth.
In 1994, we were all assured that the government intended honouring the Freedom Charter’s promise that the doors of learning would be opened to all.
It is almost three decades later and NSFAS’s failures continue to deny this promise for too many.
DispatchLIVE
Student funding scheme fails its beneficiaries at every turn
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Image: SIKHO NTSHOBANE
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was created to enhance young people’s access to higher education. It spends billions of rand of taxpayers’ money supposedly in pursuit of this honourable endeavour.
In 2023, it is funding 1.1-million students with a budget allocation of R47.6bn.
This should be exciting news in a country whose population is starved of jobs and where education and skills are scarce resources.
But, like so many government-run institutions, the scheme appears to frustrate rather than enhance the achievement of its noble goal.
It does so on every possible level.
Its bureaucracy is painfully slow and unresponsive, leaving students frustrated and angry.
This applies to its application, appeal, query and allowance and tuition payment processes.
In one foul swoop this year it defunded some 45,000 students it claims had dishonestly accessed NSFAS tertiary education funding.
NSFAS says it lost some R5bn by funding these “undeserving” students between 2018 and 2021.
How they passed the scheme’s checks and balances has not been explained.
No-one has resigned or been fired from the scheme in the face of this shocking waste of resources.
Those who sought to appeal against their defunding or the scheme’s failure to consider their applications, face an obdurate and opaque online system.
Interactions with actual humans seems an impossibility and NSFAS helplines are notoriously “congested”.
One Rhodes University student has resorted to taking the scheme to court after a year of daily facing the dreaded words “awaiting evaluation” on the NSFAS online portal.
No doubt there are thousands of other frustrated and desperate students who will be waiting to see the outcome of her court case.
One of the most pressing recent disasters has been the fund’s decision to outsource the disbursement of student allowances to four financial service providers that seem ill-equipped to do the job.
Too many students in the Eastern Cape have had to do without their allowances for months, due to the flawed migration to the new so-called “direct payment” system.
Others complain of the excessive fee structures by the service providers that take an unhealthy chunk out of the allowances which they rely on to survive.
NSFAS incompetence has become a recurring source of destructive protests at our tertiary institutions.
Tuition was halted for days and valuable university property destroyed during these protests — all thanks to the incompetence of the institution entrusted with billions to fund the education of our youth.
In 1994, we were all assured that the government intended honouring the Freedom Charter’s promise that the doors of learning would be opened to all.
It is almost three decades later and NSFAS’s failures continue to deny this promise for too many.
DispatchLIVE
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