Student funding to be paid soon

NSFAS promise comes as varsity protests continue

THE government’s financial aid scheme for students has vowed to pay all outstanding allowances owed to Nelson Mandela University by next week. This comes as NMU’s four campuses were shut down by protesting students for a second day yesterday.

Students once again gathered in large numbers along University Way in Summerstrand, singing and dancing.

Their demands include that:

ý The university put pressure on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to make the delayed payments for student accommodation, meals, textbooks, transport and other relevant support material; ý Security is beefed up; ý The university gets more shuttles for students living off campus; and

ý The admission point score (APS) system, which is used as a criterion for various courses, be lowered.

NSFAS spokesman Kagisho Mamabolo said outstanding funds would be paid out early next week.

“We hope that, if all goes well and without data integrity issues, we should be able to complete the disbursement payment for all outstanding allowances by early next week,” he said.

Data issues include duplicate entries and invalid cellphone numbers.

He said the delay was caused by NMU as it had submitted the final registration data late.

In response to Mamabolo saying the NSFAS payment was delayed by NMU, university spokeswoman Zandile Mbabela said: “Various attempts were made to submit the relevant data to NSFAS on time, but due to a number of challenges with the NSFAS system, [it] could not be successfully loaded.

“In an effort to assist NSFAS in uploading previously submitted student data into their system, all universities and colleges were summoned to Cape Town for a three-day workshop last week.”

NMU SRC secretary Mahalia Shiyani said that during a meeting yesterday with NMU’s management they had laid out the plight of students.

“We are fighting for more shuttles, financial relief and consistency with security services.

“We also made mention [of] the APS requirements.”

Shiyani said a statement issued by the university on Wednesday was “arrogant”.

“Management does not want to reason with student leaders particularly,” she said.

“We did not want a ‘business as per normal’ response to the student demands. We are therefore planning to march to the mayor’s office [today].”

Mbabela said the university’s management received a petition from the SRC at a meeting yesterday.

“The university has committed to respond within 48 hours,” she said.

“The ongoing engagements with student leaders, unions, divisional heads, managers and deans are intended to ensure the situation is normalised as quickly as possible.”

Mbabela said staff and students should remember a court interdict obtained yesterday prevented students from barricading any campus entrances.

“It is aimed at protecting the rights of all university stakeholders – those who wish to access the university to work and pursue their studies as well as those wishing to exercise their right to protest in accordance with the conditions stipulated in the interdict,” she said.

Today, students plan to march from the north campus to the office of Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip to put pressure on him to intervene in the negotiations.

Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral spokesman Sibongile Dimbaza said there had been no prior arrangement with Trollip.

“We will, as is traditionally the case, receive the memo from the group to satisfy ourselves on the issues they’re raising and see what plan of action would inform our intervention,” he said.

We did not want a ‘business as per normal’ response to demands