New administrator helps boost efficiency of student financial scheme
HIGHER Education Minister Naledi Pandor has described her appointment of an administrator for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) as one of her best decisions as a minister.
Pandor said this as she announced an improved performance by the student financial scheme in disbursing bursaries and allowances to qualifying students. “Thus far the 2019 application process has gone very well in terms of systems, applications received as well as user experience.”
She made the comments when addressing the media at a press conference in Parliament.
The NSFAS applications were extended until December 2 after they closed on November 30.
The student financial scheme had this year experienced challenges, including funding decisions, addressing the 2017 academic year backlog, the non-payment and delays in the payment of allowances and a weakness in data integration between NSFAS and institutions.
“We had a real problem in resolving these challenges, which led me to placing it (NSFAS) under administration for one year, beginning in August, 2018.”
Pandor appointed Randall Carolissen as the administrator, and described his appointment as “one of best decisions I made as a minister”.
She said Carolissen had delivered on the tasks he had been mandated with, which included ensuring that all qualifying students were confirmed for funding and had received their allowances, as well as to develop effective plans for next year in tertiary institutions.
“I am pleased to report to the South African public that NSFAS has made good progress in both these areas.”
Pandor said Carolissen had appointed a strong team to help him.
“The turnaround strategy to resolve outstanding disbursements for the current year resulted in more than R3.6billion being disbursed to institutions, and a further R10bn has been unlocked at universities and colleges since the appointment of the administrator. The team is focused on resolving all remaining problems.”
Pandor added that more than 400000 applications had been received for next year.
“This does not mean all applications will receive support. These are not yet all confirmed and processed.”
Carolissen said 170000 of the students had been confirmed as qualifying for the financial aid scheme.
Pandor said NSFAS was in the process of evaluating all applications. “This evaluation checks whether applicants are eligible for funding. The evaluation also verifies all the data received by students with third parties.”
She urged students to stick to the cellphone numbers they used when making applications, or to inform NSFAS if they changed their SIM cards.
“I know that has been a problem in the past,” Pandor said.
Carolissen attributed the success in the disbursements of bursaries to issuing remittances to institutions to identify students who were eligible and needed payments.
He also said they had reminded their staff that they worked with the dreams and aspirations of the young in South Africa. “That was one big shift, where they were working not with numbers, but with human beings who have aspirations.”
Carolissen acknowledged that while they had stabilised NSFAS, “we are not close to where we should be”.
He said NSFAS’s focus remained on ensuring that next year was a success.