Fee-free talk causes panic at NSFAS

Zwane tells parliament student scheme can’t fund ‘missing middle’

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has told MPs it could encounter difficulties if President Jacob Zuma decides it should also cater for the “missing middle” in the 2018 academic year.

This is according to NSFAS CEO Steven Zwane‚ who was briefing parliament’s select committee on education on their state of readiness for the next financial year.

Zwane said the NSFAS was ready to provide financial assistance to the usual number of financially needy students.

He told MPs that, so far, the student scheme had completed 192 984 applications for next year. Of these‚ the vast majority are black and female wanting to attend universities.

Only 18 326 of the completed applications were for Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) colleges.

On average‚ the NSFAS funds about 500 000 students a year.

Zwane told the committee that should the “missing middle” be included in their mandate as a result of discussions around fee-free education and the Heher Commission repor t‚ this would have “huge financial implications”.

Zwane said yesterday: “We are ready with the current status; we are ready to fund the up to 500 000 students that we typically fund on an annual basis. We are however concerned this could be impacted by the announcement of the president of free education.”

He said if the qualifying household income was adjusted to between R150 000 and R350000 “we can modify our systems and be able to meet that need”.

“We would, however, need to engage differently if that figure moves to R600 000. That is a really big impact for us from a people side‚ a process side and a systems side.”

Zwane said NSFAS had written to higher education minister to engage on the Heher Commission report‚ which had created some “discomfort at NSFAS”.

The report questions the need for NSFAS in its proposed system of bank-backed loans and suggests that perhaps it only deals with students going to TVET colleges.

He said the question of whether “there is a necessity for NSFAS to continue to exist caused a little bit of discomfort to the team in the office, so we need to engage them quite a bit”.

‘ ‘ We are ready to fund the 500 000 students

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