Agency unable to tell students about funds
SA’s key funding agency for poor higher education students faces an acute shortfall for 2021, leaving it unable to confirm financial aid for new university students.
SA ’ s key funding agency for poor higher education students faces an acute shortfall for 2021, leaving it unable to confirm financial aid for new university students.
In a media briefing on Monday, higher education & training minister Blade Nzimande said the funding shortfall faced by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was due largely to Covid-19 and budget cuts.
“We had to continue to pay NSFAS allowances even at the time when universities were closed, as part of students’ access to multimodal teaching and learning.
“This means we had an extended academic year which we did not allocate additional money for,” Nzimande said.
He said budget cuts across government departments also meant that there would be less money to fund poor students.
Because of the deteriorating economic situation, many NSFAS applicants who previously did not meet the funding requirements for NSFAS now did, Nzimande said.
“Due to Covid-19 a majority of them qualify because their parents lost their jobs in the process,” he said.
The Budget Review, tabled in parliament in February, shows that allocations to the higher education and basic education sectors will hardly increase in the medium term as the government struggles to stabilise its finances. Allocations to NSFAS will increase from about R37bn in 2021 to R38.6bn in the medium term, or at an average of 1.7% over the period, which is well below the inflation rate of about 3.3%.
Nzimande said the deteriorating situation associated with budget cuts started a long time before Covid-19.
“In terms of the laws and policies regulating public finances for departments and entities, including the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), NSFAS is not able to commit to funding students without the requisite budget available to support this commitment.”
The minister said, however, NSFAS was going to be funding all returning beneficiaries and students who meet the academic and other relevant criteria for continuing their studies.
Nzimande said that during the budget speech in February finance minister Tito Mboweni indicated that the government remained committed to ensuring that deserving students were supported through higher education.
In line with this commitment, Mboweni directed that the department of higher education & training should work with the Treasury to identify policy and funding options to be detailed in the medium-term budget policy statement.
“I can confirm that this work is under way and options will be presented to cabinet on Wednesday this week for consideration. The student funding policy is the responsibility of government as a whole, and as the minister responsible for higher education and training, I [will seek] to get concurrence and approval by cabinet,” Nzimande said.
“We are doing everything possible to resolve this issue as a matter of extreme urgency. The funding guidelines for universities for 2021 will be finalised as soon as cabinet has made a determination in this regard.”
Nzimande said the government had agreed with all universities that they would extend their registration period for firsttime entering students by two weeks so that no first-time students are disadvantaged by the delay in finalising funding.