Students protest over 4 months of unpaid NSFAS allowances
Classes have stopped at KSD TVET College’s Ntabozuko campus in Elliotdale as some 200 students protest over unpaid NSFAS allocations.
The students say they have not received a cent and are now being evicted by their landlords. Many students rent rooms at rural homesteads in villages near the school.
One of the students, Bongeka Mankumba, told the Dispatch students had not received their monthly allocations since February.
“Each student is supposed to get a R2,200 monthly allowance,” she said.
“But this was a problem even last year. Every time we have to stand up and protest to be able to get allowances.”
She said some students had received R290 and others R870 in February which was meant for personal care. The students returned to the campus on June 25 but the campus does not have its own student residence. Most students come from poor backgrounds and rely on NSFAS allocations to pay rent, buy groceries and get to college.
“We have a number of students who are now being evicted as they have not paid rent in months,” Mankumba said.
The protesting students are also demanding laptops and data.
Mankumba said they had learnt that students in other TVET colleges had been issued with the equipment.
She said at Ntabozuko, they had been attending classes only twice a week as part of observing Covid-19 regulations.
However, having laptops would help them catch up online. Mankumba said they had been promised mobile toilets by management to help deal with the threat of the pandemic. The Dispatch has seen cellphone text exchanges between Mankumba and campus head Sandile Madikizela in which the former raises the plight of the students as well as concerns about the school’s readiness to deal with the coronavirus.
Transport and logistics student Mongezi Mnyadi, who is originally from Durban, said he was still at home but his landlord had called him on Monday to tell him his personal belongings had been taken out of the room he was renting as he had not paid for months.
He said he owed about R1,200 in rent.
“We are supposed to go back to school soon but I don’t even have the R340 taxi fare from Durban to Mthatha. I was banking on the NSFAS allocation.”
Madikizela declined to comment and referred questions to the college’s principal, Tshepo Ngcobo, who is still in this first month of the new job.
Attempts to obtain comment from him were unsuccessful at the time of writing as he was in a meeting to deal with the issues raised by the Ntabozuko students.
Questions were also sent to NSFAS spokesperson Phatisa Ntloze but she had not responded by print deadline.