The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has reiterated its call for students at Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges to submit their banking details in order to receive their NSFAS allowances.
NSFAS Administrator, Freeman Nomvalo, made the call during a media briefing on progress relating to the disbursement of student allowances, student accommodation, and other related administrative reforms at the scheme, held in Pretoria on Monday.
Nomvalo said the scheme has devised a payment mechanism to address the payment of allowances for TVET students, and payments are currently being made directly to the students’ bank account, as announced on 26 April 2024.
Nomvalo said a total of 211 591 students' bank accounts have been verified, while a total of 7 160 failed the verification checks, due to various reasons, including bank accounts that do not belong to students, like parents’ bank accounts.
Nomvalo emphasised that the banking details provided must belong to the student to enable NSFAS to verify the information against the student’s details on scheme’s record and minimise the potential risks.
“We have requested all TVET students who do not have bank accounts to open the bank accounts with banks of their own choice to avoid delays in the payment of their allowances. I want to call upon all students who have already uploaded their personal banking details and have received a notification through the myNSFAS portal indicating that the verification of their banking details has failed to please re-submit their correct banking details on the portal,” Nomvalo said.
While acknowledging the challenges experienced by university students; Nomvalo said the direct payment mechanism will currently be applicable to TVET college students, and the university students will continue to receive their allowance as through their institutions as arranged.
Addressing concerns on student accommodation
On student accommodation, Nomvalo said NSFAS is dealing with the issues relating to student accommodation, particularly the outstanding payments to private student accommodation landlords.
Nomvalo said a dedicated email and capacity has been established to address all disputes or concerns from landlords.
He called on all landlords to continue to deposit their disputes or concerns “only in so far as outstanding payments are concerned” to the email address.
“The initial call for submission date for the concerns was 10 May 2024. I therefore would like to provide an extension to 31 May 2024, for all the landlords to continue to deposit their concerns to a dedicated email address at NSFASAccomProv@nsfas.org.za.
“All enquiries received will now be processed and will be paid end of May 2024. There may still be outstanding invoices at the end of May which will still need to be processed during the month of June,” Nomvalo said.
As part of proactive planning for future student accommodation, the Administrator said NSFAS have commenced with the planning for the national conference on future student accommodation.
He said NSFAS intend to host the conference in September 2024 involving various stakeholders across the country, including private and public accommodation providers.
“A Task Team involving all the student accommodation stakeholders has been established to serve as a consultative forum to address all issue relating to student accommodation. This Task Team is expected to report back in the September conference. We do so in order to regularise private student accommodation to give greater accommodation,” Nomvalo said.
Additional capacity to address deficiencies
Meanwhile, Nomvalo announced that an additional capacity will be procured by the end of this month, to help strengthen the office of the Administrator, address capacity deficiencies, and deal with long outstanding matters, including the submission of financial statements and the Close Out Report. – SAnews.gov.za
