The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) board chairperson, Ernest Khosa, has said that one of the biggest contributors, which is not only specific to the direct payment system, has been institutions’ non-compliance in submitting registration data.
He said this during an update on the 2023 academic year’s current state of affairs.
“NSFAS policy requires institutions to send updated registration monthly, therefore any wrong payments, such as those paid to students who have dropped out or not attending classes, would be as a result of institutions not alerting NSFAS through this process,”said Khosa
He said a total of 355 270 students have been paid, which constitutes 86% of the paid students; they have also been able to successfully authenticate themselves and receive their allowances.
Khosa added that NSFAS is reviewing and assessing the remaining students who were paid but were unable to access their funds because they had not fully authenticated themselves.
“We do note that some students have been unable to authenticate themselves due to connectivity issues and NSFAS has sent teams to campuses to assist students with their authentication and verification process.
“We have also noted that closer to payment dates, the system experiences technical glitches caused by high internet traffic due to students registering at the same time. Onboarding for TVET college students continues on an ongoing basis as new students enrol.”
He said that as with any introduction of new systems, there have been some teething issues, and genuine cases of students who have not been able to access their allowances via the new solution.
Khosa said this can be mainly attributed to issues of data integration with institutions and system glitches caused by too many students/traffic seeking to register on the system at the same time.