By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Blade Nzimande has appointed Professor Lourens van Staden as acting chairperson of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
This comes in light of board chairperson Ernest Khosa’s leave of absence amid allegations of corruption against him by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa).
According to OUTA, service providers awarded multi-million rand tenders to administer direct payment to students and allegedly paid kickbacks to Khosa, Nzimande and the South African Communist Party in return for tenders and protection for service providers.
All three parties have denied the allegations.
Nzimande said Van Staden will prioritise the appointment of the scheme’s new CEO.
“I wish to inform South Africans that I have appointed Professor Van Staden as the acting chairperson of the Nsfas with immediate effect.”
“I have already had a briefing with him emphasising the importance of Nsfas to prioritise readiness for the beginning of the 2024 academic year.”
Nzimande further announced that the government has set aside R3.8 billion to fund the country’s ‘missing middle’ students who were not covered by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas).
The missing middle students come from households with a total income of more than R350,000 and less than R600,000 per annum.
The Nsfas bursary funds students from households with a total family income of up to R350,000.
Exceptions are made for students with disabilities, whose households earn not more than R650,000 and households that have more than one student at university, whose income is also not more than R650,000.
Between 2019 and 2022 Nsfas has paid R123 billion for just over 2.9 million beneficiaries.
The implementation of the first phase of the student funding model of the missing middle, Nzimande said R3.8 billion had been set apart for the loan scheme for the 2024 academic year.
The amount is expected to fund 47% of the missing middle students, which is about 31,884 of the estimated 68,446 students in this category.
Phase 2 of the funding model is expected to be implemented from 2025 to 2034, and the government will increase the funding to R31.6 billion to R42.1 billion over ten years.
“We are ready to implement the first phase of the model, which will ensure that what we call the missing middle students will now be able to access financial support from government in a form of a loan to pursue their students,” said Nzimande.
“This loan scheme will be administered by Nsfas, which is required by law to offer and manage student loans.”
Nsfas will look for partners to manage the loan scheme as required by the law, said Nzimande.
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