Statement by the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr. Blade Nzimande on the 2014 registrations and funding of academically deserving students from poor and working class households

30 Jan 2014

As the Minister responsible for Higher Education and Training, I am concerned with the developments that have taken place over the past few days in relation to issues of registration and provision of loans and bursaries to students at higher education institutions.

Allow me to place on record that the Department of Higher Education and Training upholds the right of non-violent protest by students or any constituency at any post-school education and training institution and welcomes the active participation by the South African Students Congress (SASCO) to alleviate and resolve the challenges facing our higher education system.

The Department of Higher Education and Training has noted the concerns raised by SASCO in its statement on 26 January 2014 and met with the SASCO leadership yesterday to clarify and address these concerns. Two weeks ago I met with student organisations and at this meeting all sides agreed to work constructively and co-operatively to deal with whatever challenges we face. I still intend to meet with the representatives of Vice-Chancellors as soon as possible.

Government has to date put in place a number of initiatives to alleviate the burden of fees from poor parents and students in South Africa at both public universities and further education and training (FET) colleges by providing loans and bursaries to students from poor and working class households through the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

NSFAS is the primary tool to ensure access for poor students to post-school education which has since its inception assisted over 1.4 million students. NSFAS constitutes one of the ANC government's major success stories.

The budget of NSFAS has increased substantially and almost tripled from R3.1 billion in 2009 to just over R9 billion in 2014 in order to keep pace with the increasing number of students who need assistance to attend public FET colleges and universities.

This includes the department's grants together with other funding sources to support needy students in universities and colleges. Notwithstanding this huge increase over a relatively short period of time, the demand last year by eligible students at universities accounted for a shortfall of R2.6 billion.

In respect to the shortfall of funds, the department has made available an additional amount of R1 billion sourced from the National Skills Fund (NSF) to all universities to cover the 2013 and 2014 shortfall for continuing students. The Department has also actively engaged with sector education and training authorities (SETAs) to support students at universities.

The SETAs have responded positively and have committed to assist with funding the shortfall, addressing scarce and critical skills in their sectors. The NSFAS budget for the 2014 academic year will assist more than 430 000 students at all 25 public universities and 50 public FET colleges.

Allow me to correct a misconception being portrayed by the media, amongst students or institutions regarding previously funded NSFAS students being prevented from registering for the 2014 academic year. In this context of limited funds, students who have performed poorly in 2013 will most likely not be funded in 2014.

University and college students who received NSFAS funding in 2013 should not be prevented from registering in 2014 because of outstanding fees. NSFAS has already made advance payments to the value of 10 per cent of an FET college's 2014 annual allocation and is waiting for similar advance payment requests from universities.

A challenge still exists within the system where students who may have applied for NSFAS funding but did not receive funding last year due to limited available funds, have continued to study for the whole of 2013 without funding and now cannot register for 2014 due to outstanding student debt.

This, together with the rise in tuition and other fees which is decided by each university, and the increasing number of matriculants qualifying to undertake studies at post-school education and training higher institutions, further compounds the challenges faced by the system.

The 2010 Report of the Ministerial Committee on the Review of the NSFAS concluded that one of its major shortcomings is that funding falls far short of demand. Although NSFAS has received a steadily increasing budget, it is unable to adequately support all financially needy students.

Some universities have adequate funding to grant full loans to needy students whilst historically disadvantaged institutions, which have a larger number of financially needy students, usually adjust loans to the number of needy students, by reducing the size of the loans in order to spread the funds across to a greater number of students.

This practice often results in financially needy students obtaining partial loans which do not cover all necessary fees including boarding, lodging and books. This puts these students at risk as they cannot make up the shortfall, and therefore face the possibility of dropping out and accumulating debt. Every year the issue of historic debt resurfaces and this has been putting a strain on the system and universities.

South Africa is a developing country with many competing priorities. While we understand that Government has different priorities to accommodate within the national budget, the department is seeking through different processes such as the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and other engagements, to secure more funding for loans and bursaries to address the shortfall within NSFAS.

NSFAS as part of its turnaround strategy has initiated a transformation programme aimed at providing more efficient and effective financial aid to students. Key principles of the NSFAS transformation project includes a central application process for loans and bursaries, new central loans and bursaries administration process and appropriate governance and internal controls.

The new loan management system was implemented in October 2013 and as with the introduction of new technologies and processes, there have been teething problems which resulted in the delay of payment for 2013 students.

This is being dealt with operationally and NSFAS has been requested to ensure continuous communication with institutions so that the situation can be managed without disadvantaging students, especially those who need to register during this period and whose accounts have not been paid.

A second set of challenges relates to some of the 12 pilot institutions, comprising universities and 5 FET colleges, where students have indicated their dissatisfaction with the introduction of some of the new measures and hence have requested further consultation. What seems to be communicated by students is that the system does not allow for inter-personal negotiations because it is web-based.

The department and NSFAS are continuously engaging with all stakeholders in this pilot phase to ensure that the lessons learnt and challenges raised are acted upon. It must be remembered though, that this is a pilot based at a few institutions and therefore feedback is required in order to improve the systems as we move forward.

We must ensure the successful implementation and adoption of the NSFAS transformation programme pilot, since it is aimed at providing financial aid to students more equitably, efficiently and effectively than in the past.

The department has been in touch with all our universities since November 2013 with regard to their admissions and registration plans. The responses were very good and positive in this regard, in that all the institutions indicated that they had put plans in place. Thus far none of the protests have been directed at the lack of institutional plans, disorganised admissions or registration processes. The main issue that has been raised by students relates to financial assistance.

Since the announcement of the matriculation results, the department has been keeping in touch with universities on a daily basis in order to monitor their admissions and registration processes. The reports submitted by universities have indicated good progress with regard to the registration of first year students and registration of returning students.

We have been made aware of protest actions that took place at the University of Johannesburg, Durban University of Technology, Mangosuthu University of Technology and Tshwane University of Technology. As has been seen in the media over the last few days, the occurrence of violence and destruction of property has occurred at a few institutions.

In most cases the incidents have been adequately dealt with by institutional management. I would like to put on record that I have faith in the capabilities of the individual institutional management to deal adequately with these situations and challenges.

My major concern is the disruption of academic progress and agony that is suffered by new students at universities and the parents of these students. I hope that the meetings we have had with stakeholders will help to address these. I also wish to strongly condemn any disruptions and destruction of property, and urge all to desist from this.

The department will continue to engage with institutional management and student leadership at various institutions, and some of these discussions have led to resolving many misunderstandings.

The department will also continue to monitor the situation and act proactively to assist and advise institutions, students and parents. Institutions are also requested to treat students with dignity and respect and provide all the necessary support in dealing with registration and financial assistance matters.

We urge all stakeholders to constructively engage with each other to ensure a smooth registration process. We must not allow any of the challenges we face to negatively affect the registration process and the smooth beginning of the academic year.

We urge all institutions' management to engage with students and all other stakeholders. Similarly, as per our agreement, we urge students to use strikes as the last resort and seek to engage management first.

I wish to reassure all our stakeholders of government's commitment to address the challenges facing the post-school education and training system and its efforts towards realising fee-free education to academically deserving poor students in South Africa.

Issued by the Department of Higher Education and Training, January 31 2014

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