DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING Portfolio Committee

DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING Portfolio Committee on Higher Education Update in the payment of allowances due to students at universities and TVET colleges 12 September 2018

NSFAS Administration • The term of office of the Administrator, Dr Randall Carolissen, came into effect on 21 August 2018 • The immediate focus of the Administration period will be primarily on ensuring the effective close out of the 2017 and 2018 funding cycles and ensuring a smooth process and plan for the 2019 student funding cycle • The Administrator is supported by a team with relevant skills in student financial aid from universities and TVET colleges, human resources management, information technology and business systems analytics, and other required skills identified as the work progresses 2

NSFAS Administration • At an appropriate time, after the Administrator has undertaken the key immediate tasks to close out the 2017 and 2018 funding cycles and put in place a credible implementation plan for the 2019 process, a full assessment and investigation into the root causes of the systems, process, policy and capacity problems at NSFAS will be undertaken • This assessment must make recommendations about the short and long-term changes necessary for an effective student financial-aid system • This is likely to lead to a complete business redesign to be implemented after the 2019 registration period 3

Payments to universities and TVET colleges • By the time the Administrator was appointed, NSFAS had paid out upfront payments to universities and TVET colleges amounting to 50% of the allocations • For institutions where disbursement are done directly by NSFAS (s. Bux institutions) there have been major challenges with allowance payments • Where bursary agreements had not been signed, institutions were requested to assist in ensuring that qualifying students were paid allowances • No further upfront payments will be made to institutions. Remittances from NSFAS are now being generated to ensure that institutions are crediting the accounts of qualifying students and the correct students are receiving their allowances • Only students who have signed their bursary agreement forms can have their accounts credited, and their allowances paid 4

TVET Colleges • To date NSFAS has made four upfront payments to TVET colleges, amounting to R 2. 582 billion, which is 50% of the total allocation • Of the R 2. 582 billion, R 1. 206 billion (46%) has been utilised (i. e. R 767 million for tuition fees, benefitting 146 721 students and R 438 million for allowances, benefitting 107 166 students) • Colleges have only utilised about a ¼ of the total Bursary Allocation for 2018 • Three (3) colleges have not reported any allowance disbursements namely, Vuselela, Ingwe and Taletso • The Department monitors the payment of tuition and allowances on a weekly basis 5

TVET Colleges • The Department engaged with and supported institutions that were not disbursing funds to students. This resulted in an improvement from 21% utilisation by end July 2018 to 46% utilisation by 30 August 2018 • Regional Office staff are assisting in monitoring the disbursement of funds by colleges to students and to provide the necessary support • Many TVET colleges do not have financial aid offices and therefore have limited capacity to adequately deal with the demands of managing the bursary function. The Department will consider options to capacitate institutions • Additional bursary and verification processes undertaken at colleges, particularly to enable them to award of allowances, delays the process of bursary payments • Ongoing student and staff protests has also resulted in delays to the administration of the bursary scheme 6

Universities • Universities have been disbursing funds to students whose funding status had been confirmed by NSFAS • The Department requested universities to submit list of students on their registration database who they expected would be funded but had not as yet received a response from NSFAS on decisions for: Appeals 2017 Funding Cycle 2018 DHET General funding cycle (bursary) 2018 Disability Funza Lushaka, DSD, SETAs and NSF • 23 Universities have responded thus far identifying 56 000 students who had not received responses • The list of the 56 000 students have been submitted to NSFAS to confirm their funding status, and if eligible to generate agreement forms and expedite payments once signed 7

Thank you