The turmoil that has marked the operations of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) cannot persist if the government genuinely intends to support students from impoverished backgrounds.
In a recent development, the NSFAS leadership appeared before the portfolio committee on higher education and were granted a two-week ultimatum to rectify their internal issues, particularly regarding the backlog of appeals. This step was prompted by media reports highlighting the unjust defunding of thousands of students, causing upheaval within the higher education sphere.
According to Masile Ramorwesi, the acting CEO of the fund, a staggering 45 972 students initially received funding but were subsequently stripped of it due to procedural lapses.
A significant portion of these cases, about 14 703, resulted from hybrid applications where continuing students mistakenly applied during the transition from the old to the new system.
Some students were driven by anxiety, as they couldn’t view their funding statuses and applied in haste.
Ramorwesi vowed to rectify this error, assuring that all wrongfully rejected students would now receive the financial support they deserve.
Additionally, NSFAS received a massive influx of 170 683 appeals related to financial and academic eligibility, of which 58 924 were approved, while 6 337 applicants faced rejection.
It is abundantly clear that NSFAS has yet to devise an effective student funding model that caters to the diverse needs of South Africans.
The chaos spawned by NSFAS leadership has had dire consequences, leaving eligible students without meal allowances and embroiled in disputes with landlords due to unpaid accommodation fees. The anguish and hardship inflicted upon innocent students by the inept management of NSFAS are inexcusable.
The government must bear responsibility for allowing this chaos to persist for an extended period. Immediate intervention by the state is imperative to mitigate the harm inflicted upon the higher education sector.
This necessitates the urgent development of a lasting solution to the funding model for financially disadvantaged students within higher education.
Cape Times