By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has officially opened its application season for funding for the 2024 academic year until January 31.
Higher education, science and innovation minister Blade Nzimande said on Tuesday, “as part of improving the services to prospective applicants, there will be no supporting documents required at the time of application.
“The reason for this is due to our improved third party relations. These third parties include Sassa, Sars and the department of home affairs. They will be providing NSFAS with information to verify what the student would have declared in the application.
“The only time supporting documents will be required, is when prompted by NSFAS in case where they cannot verify the parental relationship. Communication will be sent directly by NSFAS to a student to initiate this process,” Nzimande said.
During a media briefing, Nzimande invited existing and prospective students to apply, announcing that the Nsfas funding applications formally opened on Tuesday.
Nzimande said the reason NSFAS applications were open now was because NSFAS was waiting for Sars’ completion of the tax period to enable Nsfas to have updated information available during the application season.
“We check applications against Sars to ensure the scheme is not robbed, people claiming to be looked after by grannies when parents are there and earning enough.
“Furthermore, this is done to afford the beneficiaries shorter turnaround times for decision making which is aligned to NSFAS financial eligibility assessment which requires updated Sars information.”
Nzimande said matric students should not wait until they receive their results before they apply.
He said since 1991, NSFAS funding has grown from disbursing R21.4m to almost R48bn to fund children of the working class and the poor seeking to further their studies in public universities and TVET (technical and vocational education and training) colleges.
Regarding the challenges Nsfas has faced, Nzimande said though certain difficulties persisted, Nsfas was attempting to enhance its procedures and systems.
Last month, the board terminated CEO Andile Nongogo’s contract after an investigation into allegations related to the appointment of direct payment service providers.
The SA Union of Students (Saus) also sounded the alarm on Nsfas, saying it was on the brink of collapse.
“Nsfas does admit that it’s got challenges that it is working on, but the system is working. It’s funding more than a million students,” Nzimande said.