Statement on the meeting between National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and South African College Principals
The NSFAS Executive Administrator, Dr Randall Carolissen, met with the South African College Principals Organisation (SACPO) National Executive Committee (NEC) and a representative from DHET on the February 17, 2020, to discuss preparations for the bursary administration process concerning the TVET sector for 2020.
The meeting was welcomed by both parties with SACPO noting the improvements in the NSFAS administration and the support provided to the TVET sector which has led to a significant reduction in student protests.
Furthermore, SACPO welcomed the establishment of the TVET division in NSFAS which will be dedicated to TVET administration, a function which was previously neglected. SACPO commended NSFAS for being more responsive than previous years with large numbers of students declared eligible prior to the start of the registration period. Moreover, the students are receiving payments timeously and quality of data has improved.
The improvement in the exchange of data was also highlighted since NSFAS is now receiving the registration data directly from the TVET college as opposed to first being routed to DHET. Part of the concerns raised by SACPO is for NSFAS to improve its call centre operations in terms of accuracy and consistency in responses to student queries.
NSFAS have already invested in improved call centre technology. However, it is accepted that the size of the beneficiaries numbering to higher than 750k the call centre capacity is limited. To this end more application of the portal system will assist greatly.
The meeting also underscored that TVET college sector continues to be confronted with the high culture of walk- in applications at the start of the academic year, which delays the funding decisions and payments to students. During the 2020 January period, NSFAS received 130 609 (prior year 160K) walk-in applications and it is doing its best to expedite the funding decisions of which 105 624 of these applications have already been processed.
Both parties have agreed that they need to change the student culture and encourage students to apply timeously for NSFAS in order to avoid delays in the funding decision. NSFAS also shared preparations to migrate colleges into the banking solution during 2020 that will enable the entity to disburse directly into student bank accounts.
Although SACPO appreciated the improvements, they also raised the following concerns on policy related matters:
- Historic debt, that currently there is no provision for this in the TVET sector, yet on a yearly basis college must write off debts of student who are unable to pay college fees.
- Secondly, the differentiated allowances between TVET college students and university students, lastly
- The legacy funding issues particularly for 2017 & 2018 academic years.
NSFAS agreed to direct a dedicated data analysis team that will resolve legacy issues without compromising the 2020 funding process given the limited resources. In addition, NSFAS will provide colleges with the research data that will serve as discussion points to the funding policy concerns that has been raised.
The Department, NSFAS and SACPO have agreed to have regular engagements that will strengthen the collaboration and improve the administration of the bursary scheme.
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