DUT resolves housing crisis

THE housing crisis at Durban University of Technology (DUT), which has seen students spend nights on the streets will be a thing of the past. This comes after 963 students were approved to stay in private accommodation through a cash allowance that will be made available – to students through the sBux system –  for payment to landlords. The allowance is being provided by National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and is exclusive to the 963 NSFAS students that had not been allocated permanent residence in 2017.

Dean of Students at the DUT, Amar Singh, said after lengthy negotiations and discussions with NSFAS regarding the student housing challenge that has plagued the university, all 963 students were approved to stay in private accommodation through the cash allowance.

“This decision was taken in the best interest of our students, so that those who were affected by this challenge – and those students who had previously applied and qualified for housing, can now focus on their studies,” he said.

“We are very grateful to our Student Representative Council (SRC), who worked intimately with the university, to help ensure that we have a viable solution from NSFAS to assist the affected students. The DUT has communicated this decision to the qualifying students and we are currently taking steps to ensure that these students are housed as soon as possible,” added Singh.

The sBux is a new cellphone payment system which NSFAS uses to pay allowances to students who qualify for an NSFAS bursary. sBux issues NSFAS allowances (in the form of cellphone vouchers) to students on their cellphones for the payment of food, accommodation, books and travel. These vouchers can only be used at sBux registered merchants.

The sBux system is hosted on the Google app platform and all payments are supported by NSFAS. Students are able to purchase their academic or prescribed books, selected laptops and tablets.

To obtain an sBux voucher NSFAS funded students can simply follow these steps:

• Dial the short code *133*798#? from your cellphone.
• Enter your password
• Click ‘send’
• Select option one ‘Cash Voucher’ and click ‘send’
• Enter amount and click ‘send’

You’ll receive an SMS with cash voucher number

This sBux voucher number can be used for the purchase

For all matters relating to sBux voucher creation and usage students can call the NSFAS Contact Centre at 0860 067 327.