Nzimande could have implemented NSFAS changes in 2010
21 January 2016
The DA welcomes Minister Blade Nzimande’s plans to introduce a new funding model for the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and supports the amendment of the means test to include the “missing middle” – students currently too “rich” to be eligible for NSFAS funding, but too poor for other alternatives.
It is unacceptable, however that that plans of this sort were not put into place in 2010 when they were first recommended in the Ministerial Review of NSFAS, more than half a decade before the crisis of student funding erupted into nationwide protests. Sadly South Africa’s students and universities are now paying the price for Minister Nzimande’s lethargy and neglect.
Students will have to wait until 2017 before a new system is piloted at select universities. Minister Blade Nzimande has virtually begged students to stop protests and give him time to fix NSFAS.
Many of the key solutions he appears to be offering today are not new. A Ministerial review commissioned by the Minister himself in 2010 revealed that not only was NSFAS poorly managed, but that NSFAS’s funding regime was woefully inappropriate, the allocation formula meant that historically disadvantaged universities received less money than they needed and the means test excluded thousands of applicants who desperately needed financial assistance: the so-called “missing middle”. The report urged that the Minister:
- discipline the management of NSFAS;
- amend the allocation formula to prevent further prejudice to historically disadvantaged universities;
- amend the means test to include the missing middle;
- drastically ramp up state funding; and
- consider new funding models.
Though Minister Nzimande was quick to use the report as a basis to amend the NSFAS act to increase his own oversight powers over the NSFAS board, he was not as eager to implement the other recommendations, leaving poor students and historically disadvantaged universities to continue their spiral into crisis.
It has been six years since that report: historically disadvantaged universities are all but bankrupt and poor students, driven by desperation, have run out of patience. But sadly, it unavoidable that the changes to NSFAS will take time to implement.
The DA will hold the Department of Higher Education to account to ensure a new and effective system is implemented by 2017. However, the ANC government could do more immediately. Though making much of additional ad hoc budgetary allocations, Minister Nzimande has not actually secured an increase to NSFAS’s core budget for 2016 to cover more students – in fact the students covered by NSFAS will remain steady at 405 000 – the same as last year. This must change in the 2016/17 budget.
Issued by Prof Belinda Bozzoli, DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education and Training, 21 January 2016
