The South African Union of Students (SAUS) is pointing fingers at the new payment system as the cause of delays in the disbursement of funding allocations by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) across various institutions.
This delay has left hundreds of first-year students grappling with challenges in completing registrations and paying for accommodation.
SAUS spokesperson Asive Dlanjwa asserts that registrations for first-year students should be temporarily halted until the funding allocation issues are resolved. According to Dlanjwa, this pause is necessary to ensure equal opportunities for all students, regardless of their financial circumstances.
Dlanjwa says, “Pause registration so that you give everyone an equal opportunity, those that can afford and those that cannot afford. The most practical thing to do in all honesty would be to pause those registrations because you can’t even implement an imposed quota because there’s no legislation to impose quotas on the general admission of students.”
He further emphasised that students may take matters into their own hands by disrupting registrations or shutting down institutions if the challenges persist.
In the video below analyst Veli Mbele discusses the NSFAS funding issue:
