The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is concerned and alarmed that students from Ehlanzeni College have been compelled to find accommodation in public libraries and police stations.
To clarify matters, NSFAS made an upfront allowance to institutions in the first disbursement run in February 2019. This amount was sent to the Colleges which had the capacity to disburse allowances to students. In some cases colleges requested NSFAS to take over the payments of allowances via the NSFAS wallet as they were struggling to pay all the students.
The upfront payment of R1950 per student was intended to be applied for two months transport and personal care. NSFAS is currently processing payments for top up allowance for the two months for private accommodation students. However, in order for NSFAS to make accommodation payment accurate registration declaration were required from Colleges.
On 12 March 2019 Ehlanzeni forwarded an updated declaration however, information for students from two campuses Mapulaneng and Barberton were incomplete. As things stand now 137 students from Mapulaneng have received allowances as at Tuesday 12 March 2019.
NSFAS has engaged Student Representative Council (SRC) and campus management in the current accommodation crisis and will provide further support to resolve this situation before the end of this week. It should be noted that the Administrator had previously engaged private accommodation service providers to explain the NSFAS allowance structure and the payment schedule.
NSFAS Administrator Dr Randall Carolissen said that an agreement was reached that NSFAS funded students will not be required to pay deposit on accommodation. “Furthermore we emphasise the need for all private accommodation service providers to obtain institutional accreditation to ensure that the welfare of students remain a priority. At the time of this press release campus management was engaging with landlords to resolve this matter,” concluded Dr Carolissen.
For media enquiries:
Phatisa Ntlonze
Cell: 078 144 5980
Tsepo Khanye
Cell: 079 348 0894
E-mail: media@nsfas.org.za
