The Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology Blade Nzimande has defended the proposed policy guidelines by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), for the 75% requirement pass rate in order for students to qualify for funding.
Currently, NSFAS is in consultation with all the relevant stakeholders including students before the implementation of the guideline in 2023. Nzimande told parliament that tolerating failure by students in tertiary institutions will prevent new eligible students to receive funding.
“We will allow you to fail once but honestly beyond that-what we are doing we will be funding students to stay longer in the system and in the process we will be disadvantaging students who are outside who cannot access or get NSFAS because it is being hocked by those who are spending more than the required amount of time. In other words, we must not look at this in a one-sided way otherwise we want to privilege those who are already in the system,” Blade Nzimande explains.
VIDEO: SA Union of Students unhappy with NSFAS’ 75% pass requirement: Asive Dlanjwa
