The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) says it has paid 355 270 to beneficiaries following engagements between stakeholders. NSFAS chairperson Ernest Khosa said this constitutes 86% of the paid students who have also successfully authenticated themselves onto the financial aid scheme’s new direct payment system.

THE NEW PAYMENT SYSTEM

Khosa briefed the media today in Pretoria on the progress made by NSFAS. Between September 2021 and September 2022, NSFAS Chief Executive Officer Andile Nongogo had several engagements with the Universities South Africa (USAf) to discuss funding guidelines and changes in disbursement methods. "This has resulted in the formation of a task team consisting of representatives from NSFAS, USAf and the Department of Higher Education, which led to the introduction of the direct payment method and taking over student accommodation," Khosa said, adding that stakeholders working together led to fast tacking some processes.

OVER 350 000 STUDENTS PAID 

Khosa added that a total of 355 270 paid students have been able to successfully authenticate themselves and receive their allowances. "NSFAS is reviewing and assessing the remaining students that were paid but unable to access their funds because they had not fully authenticated themselves. We do note that some students have been unable to authenticate themselves due to connectivity issues and NSFAS has sent teams to campuses to assist them with their authentication and verification process," he said, adding that they have also noted that closer to payment dates, the system experiences technical glitches caused by high internet traffic due to students registering at the same time. Khosa said a total of over R6 million was paid to beneficiaries at public universities while a total of over R 3m was paid to TVET colleges for the month of August alone. He said that there are 14% of students not receiving their funds due to technical glitches. "As with any introduction of new systems, there have been some teething issues and genuine cases of students who have not been able to access their allowances with the new system. This can be mainly attributed to issues of data integration with institutions and system glitches caused by too many students/traffic seeking to register onto the system at the same time. We have also had reports of students struggling with the authentication process and requiring assistance, hence we swiftly deployed officials across various campuses," said Khosa. 

NON COMPLIANCE BY SOME INSTITUTIONS 

He said one of the biggest contributors, which is not only specific to the direct payment has been institutions’ non-compliance in submitting registration data. "Registration data is either submitted late or incorrectly, and this disarms NSFAS as we can’t pay students whose registration has not been confirmed. Our policy requires institutions to send updated registration monthly, therefore any wrong payments such as those paid to students who have dropped out or not attending classes are as a result of institutions not alerting NSFAS through this process," he said.

DEFUNDED STUDENTS

NSFAS also reports that more than 45 000 students were defunded for submitting fraudulent documents. Khosa says that some students would provide correct parental relationships in their first application attempt, and when they get rejected due to the financial status of those parents, they would then reapply and submit different parental relationships. "When we did re-evaluation, our system picks up the original information previously submitted," he said. He said after re-evaluation funding was reinstated for 14 703 and 31 224 remained unsuccessful, with most first-time entering students having a household income of more than 350 000 and returning students either not meeting the required academic progression, which is 50% of all registered modules. Other state entities such as SASSA, SARS, and the Department of Home Affairs were involved to verify information submitted by individuals during application. Last week, students protested over NSFAS defunded hundreds of them after it found that it lost R5 billion on funding students that were not deserving of the funding but, some students have been arguing that they were wrongfully defunded.