NSFAS has extended the application period window for students. Photo via Facebook
Student financial aid scheme Nsfas has announced its decision to extend the application period for students in need of tertiary education funding.
This follows after a meeting between the bursary scheme’s board and student leaders on Nsfas’s state of readiness for the start of the 2024 academic year. The initial deadline for applications was stated as 31 January.
“The meeting agreed that the Nsfas loan scheme will be opened on the 2nd of February 2024 and will also close on the 15th of February 2024. Nsfas bursary loan scheme is the first phase of the comprehensive student funding model,” said Nsfas spokesperson Ismael Mnisi on Thursday, 1 February.
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Students who have already applied for funding need not submit new applications.
Mnisi said the scheme has received more than 1.7 million applications for 2024.
“[A total of] 940 682 are provisionally funded, 269 915 are awaiting evaluations, 48 643 have been withdrawn by students, 232 509 are in progress and 136 531 applications are on the ‘not started’ status as applicants only created profiles and did not submit applications.”
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After IT challenges, “improper conduct” by its former CEO and payment delays, Nsfas has announced that the bursary scheme is “determined” to make all its outstanding 2023 disbursements to 20 000 affected students by 15 January.
However, according to the Nsfas Applications website, despite the scheme’s promise to address these outstanding payments, challenges persist.
In mid-October last year, Nsfas cancelled its contracts with four service providers that were implicated in wrongdoing with the student bursary scheme’s now-former CEO Andile Nongogo.
These companies were tasked with the scheme’s new direct payment system to provide funded students their monthly living allowances for essentials, such as food, transport and hygiene products.
The termination of these contracts was announced during a media briefing by Nsfas on 18 October.
Nongogo was placed on special leave in August after he was implicated in an Outa investigation for improper conduct due to a conflict of interest in the appointment of the service providers contracted to distribute the funds to students.
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In July, students were also left out in the cold without their living allowances when service providers failed to distribute funding on time.
Fed-up students embarked on countrywide protests, including a march to Parliament during which they called on Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande to intervene against the new direct banking system implemented by Nsfas.
In November, Deputy President Paul Mashatile announced in Parliament that a new Nsfas funding model which would accommodate the “missing middle” was in the pipeline.
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