Wits SRC Secretary General Warren Makoga says the government has failed students again, because it has failed to give them a proper framework on how the bursary scheme system is going to work.
This comes after the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Naledi Pandor announced on Tuesday that good progress has been made since the former President Jacob Zuma said in 2017 that government will provide free higher education for students from poor and working class homes.
The new bursary scheme will be introduced this year – with additional government funding of R7 166 billion in 2018 being allocated to fund bursaries for learners of poor and working class families entering universities and TVET colleges. R4 581 billion has been set aside for qualifying university students and R2 585 billion for TVET college learners.
“The problem has always been with the administration capacity that Nsfas has and with the government increasing the capacity by increasing the criteria and extending the scope, what makes one think that Nsfas can be able to have the administrative muscle to deal with this?”
Mokoga says he thinks the best possible way is to move away from the centralised model of Nsfas and allow universities and TVET colleges to actually be the ones that check if students qualify for the bursary scheme.
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