We’ve paid for stipends: NSFAS
Lump sum given to varsities, TVETs
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has blamed universities for not passing on the R6.4-billion upfront payment covering food, transport and book allowances to poor students.
Students embarked on protests over unpaid allowances in recent weeks.
According to an updated report sent to Universities South Africa, an organisation representing the academic institutions, NSFAS said payments were advanced to the institutions to ensure that funded students received their allowances.
The upfront payments are 30% of the provisional allocations and are paid to the institutions to cover tuition and allowances. The provisional allocation is R16.426-billion, and so far close to R5-billion has been paid.
The first upfront payment of R1.5-billion was made on January 26, which was followed by R1-billion on March 20 and R2.2-billion on April 4.
For Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, the provisional allocation is R5.1-billion and so far R1.5-billion has been paid.
NSFAS spokesman Kagisho Mamabolo said the protests could have been caused by late submission of registration data to NSFAS that delayed the generation of bursary agreements.
This impacts on automated allowances that go directly to institutions.
“Due to this late submission, NSFAS has advanced payment towards all the 26 universities and TVET colleges to ensure that no qualifying student goes hungry,” Mamabolo said.
“Once the institution receives the upfront payment from NSFAS, all they do is to credit the students accord- ingly as an advance/upfront payment.”
He said to ensure students were catered for, NSFAS has sent IT teams to institutions and held a workshop recently with all institutions to exchange registration data.
“The more the data is wrong, inaccurate, the more it will take time for NSFAS to ensure that the funds are disbursed to the right student at the right time.”
An NSFAS official who asked not to be named said they did not understand why universities were not giving students allowances.
“We have paid a lump sum to universities and TVET colleges in the last three months so that they can give students advance money for food.”
Universities South Africa CEO Ahmed Bawa said that to his knowledge the upfront payment was on the basis of tuition fees owed to the universities. “Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the report as I still need to consult with my team,” Bawa said.