Dear Editor
The DA will hold the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to account in ensuring that they are ready to assist all Scheme beneficiaries, including missing middle, at the start of the higher education academic year.
Past years have seen students’ studies interrupted or derailed, as they suffered hunger, destitution, and unpaid studies due to failures at NSFAS.
The DA raised numerous concerns last year that adversely affected students and we will ensure significant progress has been made to resolve.
Among the changes we hope NSFAS has implemented is increasing the number of personnel to deal with student complaints and queries, as well as appeals. We have yet to receive clarity on appeals of students wrongly defunded last year and who are now struggling with registration this year. We also hope that considerable progress has been made in upgrading NSFAS’ information and communication technology (ICT) system to ensure that all students are speedily assisted and to accommodate the missing middle students meant to benefit from the NSFAS loan scheme.
The payment of owed allowances to students also needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
It is important that NSFAS proves steps taken to resolve and prevent further financial discrepancies such as those highlighted by the Auditor-General (AG), as well as what consequence management has taken place in this regard.
The DA also advocates for the scrapping of the blanket accommodation cap in favour of considering accommodation allowances on a case-by-case basis. This includes the arbitrary accommodation allowance differences between students attending universities and technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges.
Last, NSFAS must inform the public regarding the current status of the contract of both the direct service payment providers and the student accommodation online portal service providers and student accommodation accrediting agents.
We look forward to robustly engaging with NSFAS in ensuring quality services for students.
Regards
Matlhodi Maseko MP
DA Spokesperson on Higher Education
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