R650 million in NSFAS bursaries “wasted”
15 March 2016
The continued inefficiency that has come to characterise the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) can no longer be tolerated. It has become clear that neither NSFAS nor the Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, grasp the seriousness of issues currently facing Higher Education in South Africa, or simply do not care for the needs of our students.
This comes after it was revealed in a parliamentary reply to a question submitted by the DA which details that from NSFAS amounts set aside for grants in the form of allocations, i.e. loans and bursaries, more than R650 million was unutilised for the current year ending in March.
It is unfathomable that while 8.2 million South Africans are without work, or having given up looking, young people are being denied opportunities to study because the Department cannot get the available funding available to those who need it.
This is a slap in the face of poor students desperately seeking the financial means to acquiring a degree, which would enable them to enter the job market with a better chance of providing for themselves and their dependents.
Furthermore, in the last financial year almost R750 million was unutilised. In trying to justify this sorry state of affairs, Minister Nzimande cited the current allocation method wherby funds are allocated to a university based on a formula. “This could result in a situation where some universities have not spent their allocation and only notify NSFAS of this late in the financial year, at which stage it may not be possible to fund other students, as the academic year has ended.” He said the appropriateness of this formula and model was one of the factors that has resulted in the new student-centred model, where the money follows the student rather than the institution.
Other replies on the same day revealed that Minister Nzimande does not know how many students are in NSFAS’s “missing middle” bracket, how much it will cost to fund these students, how much library resources or outsourcing on campuses are going to cost this year. This clearly shows that the Minister is not in a position to provide the leadership the sector requires in this time of crisis, if he does not even know how much key cost drivers will cost. He needs to, at the very least, provide this information as soon as possible so as to constructively work towards finding solutions for the current challenges facing higher education.
The Department of Higher Education should account for itself in justifying the gigantic amount of unutilised NSFAS funds. Minister Nzimande should also present to Parliament a detailed report on how the new student-focused allocation system will improve on the current one. Prospective students can no longer be excluded from higher education institutions due to the inefficiency of NSFAS and the Department of Higher Education.
The DA will continue to fight for the interests of students and hold government accountable if they don’t.
Statement issued by Prof Belinda Bozzoli MP, DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education and Training, 15 March 2016
