Tremendous progress has been made in making higher education more accessible to the poor through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) over the years, says South Africa’s Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande.
Briefing the media here Thursday on the higher education and training sector’s state of readiness and on options available to young people seeking opportunities for post-school education and training (PSET) in 2017, he said the NSFAS had funded more than 1.7 million students since 1994.
In 2016, the NSFAS supported approximately 480,000 poor undergraduate students to attend universities and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges. The NSFAS also disbursed loans and bursaries totalling 14 billion Rand (about 1.02 billion US dollars) to students in 2016.
Nzimande said that this year, the NSFAS would be funding 205,000 first-year and continuing eligible students at universities and 200,000 students at TVET colleges by providing student loans and bursaries totalling 15.2 billion Rand.
The government would pay the fee increases, capped at 8.0 per cent, for all qualifying registered students with a gross combined family income of up to 600,000 Rand per annum in 2017.
This is a grant, which covers the increases for tuition fees and university or college-managed accommodation, and will not have to be repaid by qualifying students. This will benefit more than 75 per cent of university and TVET college students, and in some institutions, more than 90 per cent of students, he said.
He said NSFAS qualifying students will not pay any registration or upfront fees in 2017, as government has made arrangements through NSFAS to pay the registration fees for all funded students as an upfront payment to universities and TVET colleges in January each year.
All NSFAS qualifying students, who were registered in 2016, and were successful in their studies, but who have accumulated historical student debt with institutions of higher education, will be allowed to register in 2017.
The Minister had requested universities to manage student debt through fair and transparent debt management policies in order to ensure that outstanding student debt is recovered over a reasonable period.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK