Only 90 000 students so far registered for free education
Total of 212 000 have qualified and process is still under way
● The country’s 26 universities and 52 technical and vocational education colleges have so far registered only 90 000 out of the 212 000 students who qualified for free higher education.
Kagisho Mamabolo, spokesman for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, said this week that it had not received confirmation from the institutions whether a further 122 000 students who qualified for financial aid had been admitted or registered.
“NSFAS will depend on institutional confirmation before processing any sort of payment to these students’ institutions.”
He said institutions supplied them with information on registrations in a format required by NSFAS as soon as the registration period closed.
“Not all institutions have submitted [the information]; the submission is ongoing. It cannot be done overnight. The universities must make sure that the registration is done correctly.
“We will settle the bill of the student as and when the university brings it to us because processing any sort of payment without confirmation means we might be paying a university for a student who was not admitted.”
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba announced during his tabling of the national budget this week that higher education institutions will receive R57-billion over the next three financial years to fund free tertiary education for the poor and working-class students.
Gigaba was forced to scramble for money to fund free higher education following former president Jacob Zuma’s sudden announcement of the programme in December last year.
A random survey by the Sunday Times this week found that 16 of the 26 universities enrolled 98 081 first-year students this year.
Institutions that enrolled a high number of first-years were:
Tshwane University of Technology: ●
15 127.
University of Johannesburg: 10 500. ● North-West University: 9 677. ●
University of Pretoria: 9 500 ●
Among those that registered the highest number of late or “walk-in” applicants were the University of Fort Hare (1 113), the University of Johannesburg (741) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (476).
At least 14 947 of the 40 014 first-year students registered at the universities of Pretoria, Johannesburg, KwaZulu-Natal, Nelson Mandela and Stellenbosch qualified for free education. The other institutions could not provide figures of students qualifying for free education as they were still awaiting the outcome of their applications from NSFAS.
Teaching degree popular
Meanwhile, the bachelor of education or teaching degree still appears to be a popular choice of study, with at least seven of the 13 universities confirming that a large number of students registered for it.
The University of Pretoria admitted 748 students for the teaching degree and the University of KwaZulu-Natal 608.
Asked why so many students enrolled for teaching, University of Pretoria spokesman Rikus Delport said: “We can only assume it is because they believe it offers them the best career prospects.”
The bachelor of social sciences and BA degrees were also popular. At least 1 194 enrolled for the social science degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal while 879 registered at the University of Fort Hare.
At the University of the Witwatersrand, 1 270 students registered for the BSc degree followed by the BA degree (1 043) and engineering (950).
Wits spokeswoman Shirona Patel said the science degree was very flexible and covered a wide range of fields including mathematical sciences, actuarial sciences, geography and biological sciences.
“It offers students wide career options in a variety of industries.”
Stellenbosch University spokesman Martin Viljoen said 535 students registered for the BAcc degree followed by the BCom in management sciences degree (243) and the BA degree: humanities (243).